Infinite Stratos: Paxis
by Ben Thryss
Summary: Ten years ago, a weapon of unlimited potential was unveiled. It was called Infinite Stratos, and it brought the world together. The problem: only women can pilot them... or so the world thought. Taking the world by surprise, the estranged son of a legendary IS pilot discovers he can operate these incredible machines. His name is Sten Murdoch.
1. Chapter 1

**I feel obliged to tell you, the first five chapters of this story are mostly canon, whereas everything after gets much more original. This is to give the proper setup for the plot.**

**So, I hope you'll give my story a chance, despite the canon events.**

* * *

**- INFINITE STRATOS -**

PAXIS

- 1 -

_"The Impossible Pilot"_

It was the first of September, in the year 2020. Houki Shinonono wasn't used to school starting so late in the year, and it made her a little uncomfortable. Westerners sure were weird.

She absent-mindedly twirled a lock of her long brown hair around a finger and tried to restrain herself from readjusting the green ribbon that held it up. She was _so_ incredibly bored!

Seated in the far left corner at the front of her classroom at the Infinite Stratos Academy, she started tapping her fingers soundlessly on her desk as she sighed.

Her eyes were trained on a hologram at the front of the classroom, watching as Chifuyu Orimura, her teacher and a former IS League Champion, explained the basics of what their year was going to be like.

The Class Representative would be selected in a month, when everyone was settled in, and the Class League Tournament, in which the class reps would duke it out, would take place two weeks later.

"As you all know, this academy is here to teach you how to understand, operate and pilot an IS, which is short for Infinite Stratos," the Japanese woman said, using a pointer to gesture to a diagram of an Uchigane unit, the standard mass-produced training IS.

"This is a boarding school, so you'll all be together before, during and after school hours. Try not to step on too many toes, alright? I don't want to have to deal with crying little girls every-"

Miss Orimura was cut off by the door as it slammed open. A woman who was so absurdly disproportionate that it was almost comical sprinted in with a datapad.

"Miss Orimura!" she cried, "You _have_ to see this!"

"Students, this is your assistant teacher, Miss Maya Yamada," Orimura said without pause.

Yamada pulled the curriculum datapad from the console from which the hologram was being projected and replaced it with the one she'd run in with. "This is footage from an IS compatibility trial in Canada that took place a few hours ago.

The projection displayed an arena not unlike their own stadiums. Every country had at least one for IS compatibility trials, and Canada had three. There were four pits, one in each corner, and a retractable roof.

Three girls were already aloft, each clad in an IS unit as they faced one of the competitor's pits. From said pit came another Uchigane. However, this pilot was different.

"My god... T-that's impossible," Orimura said, her eyes widening in shock.

Houki couldn't really blame her for being a bit gobsmacked. The teenage girl gasped as she saw the IS' cockpit. The camera zoomed in to give them a closer look at a person with mid-length brown hair and a pair of brilliantly green eyes.

He looked terrified.

Wait, _HE_ looked terrified?!

It was a boy piloting an IS! That wasn't possible! No way, no how!

Because of some fluke in the design that had been discovered not long after they'd been invented, it was found that the Infinite Stratos could only be piloted by females. There had been a lot of controversy over the issue, but the designer of the IS had said that it didn't strike her as a particularly important flaw, so she would leave it alone. Eventually, women had started to assert more control over society. It wasn't uncommon nowadays to see women order random men they didn't know around just to exert dominance.

Houki watched slack-jawed as the footage cut out and Yamada turned to Orimura. "The Canadian government had to seize him. Over a hundred countries have come forward and either requested, demanded or bribed for ownership of him. They've denied everyone so far."

Miss Orimura bit her lower lip and crossed her arms. "Send a request as well. I think it's best if we handle him."

There was silence for a moment, before every girl in the room simultaneously screamed, "_**WHAT?!**_"

Bringing a _single_ _boy_ into a school with a population of over five hundred girls? What could _possibly_ go wrong?

"Just out of curiosity," Houki said, finally speaking up, "What's his name?"

Orimura turned to Yamada, who gulped before saying, "His name is Sten Murdoch. As in _our_ Murdoch."

Everyone present, even Orimura, was shocked. No one at the Academy hadn't heard the name Murdoch before.

After all, the most powerful IS duo in the school was comprised of Olivia and Valerie Murdoch, Canada's Representative Contenders. Not to mention their mother, Elizabeth Murdoch, the teacher they all knew as the Iron Lady. She'd never mentioned she had a son before...

"Then scratch the request. You'll have to excuse me, everyone. I need to make a call."

Orimura left the room. Leaving Yamada standing there awkwardly. She started trembling and pouting nervously, before running out the door as well.

Left to their own devices, the twenty-seven students of Class 1-1 realized they could finally get back to doing what they did best.

Gossip.


	2. Chapter 2

- 2 -

_"Down the Rabbit Hole"_

I was sitting quietly on a private jet plane, my chin resting on my fist as I watched the clouds fly by. Two weeks had passed since I'd accidentally wandered into an IS compatibility match, and they'd been the strangest two weeks of my life.

Well, strange being relative. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so weird things happened fairly often. You know: aliens, monsters, giant robots... That kind of stuff.

This was icing on the cake, though.

Apparently, I wasn't as free a person as I'd been told. When the officials had realized that I wasn't a girl, I'd been guided back into the pit and escorted to the local police station, from which I was transferred to the parliament building in Ottawa. The Prime Minister hadn't been the kindest to me, but I could understand that. After all, I wasn't dressed very nicely and I hadn't showered in days at that point. Apparently, France had offered them seven billion Euros for my custody, second only to Germany's offer of ten billion. I thought I was going to become a lab experiment. Probably, if I was lucky, locked in a room, on a stretcher, highly sedated for the rest of my life while doctors pulled me inside out.

That was when a very odd request came forward from someone in Japan. She'd offered absolutely nothing but her name and suddenly _my_ ass was _her_ property.

So, I was being shipped overseas like a freaking parcel.

_Fzzz- "This is the captain speaking. We'll be descending into Tokyo in about five minutes, so strap in, kid." -fzzz_

I really hadn't moved since the plane had taken off, so I didn't need to do up my seatbelt again. The plane landed and I was quickly corralled into a limo by a bunch of gigantic guys in black suits.

What am I, a lamb?

I sat down in the comfortable leather seat and came face-to-face with a techno bunny ear-wearing Alice in Wonderland lookalike. Only Japanese.

"Hidey-Hi!" she cried, flashing the peace sign, "I'm everyone's favourite superstar! Tabane Shinonono, at your service!"

My eyebrows furrowed. Was she for real?

"Why am I here?" I asked calmly as the engine started and the car drove off.

"No nonsense, I see. Well, then I suppose I should get right to it, Sten-san."

"Drop the -san."

"Okey dokey!" she said, before pulling out a laptop. She started tapping away at the keys at speeds that made my eyes widen. Seriously, it was like the computer was just a part of her hand. Eventually, she turned the screen around and on it was a diagram of a building. "This is the IS Academy!"

I nodded.

"You're gonna go to school there pretty soon, so I guess I should probably give you a bit of warning."

"What?" I asked, totally deadpan and more than a little horrified.

Before Tabane could continue, the car stopped moving. I would have asked what was going on if the door hadn't opened and a woman with long black hair tied back in a ponytail sat down beside me.

She tried to introduce herself, but:

"CHI-CHAAAAAAN!" Tabane lunged at her and tried her damnedest to give the new woman a hug.

This 'Chi-Chan' bonked Tabane in the forehead. "Act your age, Tabane," she scolded half-heartedly, as if she'd been saying that for years, before turning to me. "Sten Murdoch?"

"Yeah. Who's asking?"

"My name is Chifuyu Orimura. I'm here on behalf of the IS Academy."

I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. "I figured as much, considering the monologue Rabbit Ears over here was about to go off on. So, what's up? You want me to teach there, or something?"

"Don't get full of yourself, kid. Just cause you can fly an IS doesn't mean you can pilot one."

"Yeah, that much makes sense. You know how much time it took me to get back to the pit? Seven minutes!"

"Yeah, I watched the footage. Almost gave me a heart attack when I realized you weren't a girl. Then again, it was pretty hard to tell."

"Now hey, just because you're a woman doesn't mean I'm gonna let you walk all over me! You can either tell me why you're here or you can get the hell outta the car."

I could see Tabane looking more nervous with every word I uttered. That sentence actually made her cringe.

Chifuyu just chuckled and smirked. "You're prideful. I like that. Anyway, the headmaster of the Infinite Stratos Academy sent me here to fix you up."

Tabane's head cocked curiously, almost like a child. I crossed my arms, refusing to give away that I was also a bit befuddled.

"Collect me, you mean?" any hint of a small smile on my face disappeared like _that_.

"Close, but not quite. You won't actually be coming to Laurentian for a week or so. I just need to get some things before we can register you."

"Well, just one problem. Isn't ISA an all-girls school?" I asked.

"Not by law. It only has girls simply because they're the only ones who can pilot the IS."

"So you want to dump me, a pubescent teenage boy into a school full of hundreds of pubescent teenage girls?"

"The idiocy of it struck me as well, but it wasn't _my_ stupid idea. The headmaster was the one who sent me out here," she replied. I sighed at the absurdity of my situation. I just wanted a regular school experience, and here I get this. Granted I'd skipped grade 9, but who really cares. I skipped everything else.

Chifuyu uncrossed her arms before reaching into a briefcase and handing a stack of paper to Tabane, who had remained surprisingly silent. "These are registration forms. Since he's technically your ward right now, I also need you to sign this, which gives me legal permission to look after him in your stead."

"Hey!" I cried as I slapped it out of her hand before she could hand it over and said, "I'm not a freaking trading card! Why hasn't anyone _asked_ _me_ what the hell _I_ want?"

Chifuyu sighed and picked the papers back up. "Listen, Murdoch, there are a lot of people who'd like to put you in a lab and chop you open just to see what you look like on the inside. I'm trying to ensure both that you're protected and that you can learn to use this newfound ability of yours."

I paused. No matter what, I'd always considered myself a free spirit. Not even dad claimed to have control over me, although there wasn't a human being I respected more than Owen Murdoch. This Chifuyu lady made an awful lot of sense, even if I didn't really like what she was saying.

Beyond that, if I said no, I'd probably be a test subject for the rest of my life...

Both options sucked.

"Tabane?" I said.

"Yeppy yep?" she said, smiling and obviously happy to be back in the conversation.

I clenched my fists and steeled myself for the inevitably insane journey I had ahead of me if I said the seven words in my head.

I tried to talk myself out of it again, but I realized that in the end, I really didn't have much of a choice.

"Sign the papers," I said, "I'm going to school."

- IS -

It was sunny when I arrived on Laurentian Island, which, contrary to what the name would suggest, was nowhere near the Laurentian Sea, nor the Abyss. It was about a tenth the size of the UK, and located on the oceanic equivalent of Mount Everest, reaching from the bottom of the ocean to the surface, almost equidistant between Labrador and Portugal. The ISA was on a relatively small spit of land on the western side of the island, affording the school's population fantastic sunsets.

Or so the brochure said. I had my doubts.

Clouds were floating lazily above and it was a few degrees below 20 Celsius, but I was just wearing a brown tee shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Fall was my favourite season, if only because the trees looked pretty and were nice to climb, though I seriously doubted I'd have time to climb very much while I was here, what with the whole 'learning to fly a high-tech battlesuit' thing.

On the flip side, I was going to learn to fly a high-tech battlesuit. Woohoo!

I rode a monorail car from the mainland's airport that took me to the IS Academy spire, which looked like a swirling ribbon that reached from a hexagonal, dome-like building to what looked like a spike.

That feeling in my gut wasn't nervousness. No, I definitely wasn't nervous. Just... agitated.

It was bad enough that it was my first day of high school, but I was going to an all-girls boarding academy on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Who the hell _wouldn't_ be on edge?

Still, it beat sitting around playing tea party with Tabane for six _agonizingly_ long days. I had no idea a genius could make so little sense.

Don't get me wrong, Tabane was one of the best people I'd ever met. She let me live with her, albeit insisting that I sleep with her too.

No, not in _that_ way.

But, either way, she'd given me enough knowledge to get me started at the elitist IS Academy, where I was going to be the village idiot either way. She gave me a pair of bunny ears that matched hers, too, which I took off as soon as I got on the plane to Laurentian. Naturally, they zapped me the second they left my head. In the end, I'd been forced to flush them out the plane's toilet. I also swapped out the 'I Love Taba-Chan' tee shirt for what I was currently wearing.

That woman was nuts, but I could tell that she was just an introduction to what was to come.

...

Actually, no. What I was walking into was crazy. Tabane was downright senile sometimes.

The monorail ended and I stepped off the car with a mostly-empty duffel bag slung over my shoulder and my favourite pillow under my arm. I could feel a cool breeze blowing through the Academy's station.

Chifuyu, a tiny green-haired woman who seemed much younger than she probably actually was (just judging by the size of her chest (it's sorta hard to ignore)), and a Japanese girl about my age were standing a few yards away, obviously waiting for me.

"Sten, over here," the teacher said. I walked down the three steps from the platform onto the pristine white floor and made my way over to the three women.

"Morning, teach," I said pleasantly, giving her a half-hearted wave.

"Welcome to the Academy. This is your class' assistant teacher, Maya Yamada."

I extended a hand for her to shake. "Welcome!" she said cheerily, "I look forward to teaching you!"

"I'm sure it'll be fun."

Chifuyu grabbed my attention again and pointed to the third girl. "This is Houki Shinonono. She's in your class, which is the one I teach. She'll show you to class and explain the daily routine."

"Shinonono?" I asked, immediately recognizing the name. It had way too many 'no's.

"Uh, yeah," she replied. Her stern look could have melted steel.

"Your sister's nuts."

"Yes. Yes she is."

"Anyway, it's nice to meet you."

I quickly shook her hand before turning back to Chifuyu. "So, am I dropping my stuff off in a room or just bringing it to class?"

She crossed her arms again. "A room hasn't been assigned to you yet, so for now just keep it with you. Also, since your attendance was somewhat unforeseen, we don't have a uniform ready for you."

"What, so am I going to class naked?"

Yamada and Houki's jaws dropped and I laughed. "No," Chifuyu said, "Just wear what you're wearing for now. We'll have a uniform for you in a week or so."

I nodded and shrugged my bag back onto the shoulder it had started to slide off of. I turned to Houki. "So, where's class?"

If she frowned any more, I was pretty sure her face would split in two. "This way."

I nodded to Chifuyu, who sent us on our way.

The Academy uniform, if Houki's was to be any example at all, was a white jacket with red stripes that incorporated a skirt into the bottom. The collar was large and black with red trim. A blue ribbon was tied in a bow around the collar of her dress shirt.

"So...," I said, trying and failing to make conversation.

"Hmm," was all she said.

"How is it here?"

She looked over at me like 'I don't really want to talk to you but I have to so please shut up after I finish this sentence'. I hated that look.

"Good, I suppose. There are a lot of weirdos here, and I imagine that'll be a bit more common now that you're here. Watch out for the third years. I heard a few of them talking about jumping someone, so just keep your eyes open."

It wasn't surprising, really. Laurentian Island's population was really off-balance because of the number of IS pilots living there. Over sixty percent was female, and most of the girls at this academy probably only went back to their home countries during long vacations.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you care if I get jumped or not."

Houki's face got a few shades redder than normal. "No! I'm just concerned about a fellow classmate's safety!" she yelled, stomping faster.

I think I may have started her off a bit too quickly. I'd heard how prudish the Japanese were in comparison to Westerners, but it was quite different seeing it up close.

And by Westerners, I mean everywhere west of Japan.

I took a few running strides to catch up to her. "Hey, I was just kidding! I'm a kidder!"

"I can see that. I just don't like being made fun of."

"Hey, I'm not making fun of you," I assured her, "I'm just not very good at new people. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, without many people to talk to, so-"

"Well, you better learn fast. Wait outside 'til the teacher calls you in."

She turned a corner and started down a hallway I could see was lined with classrooms. I waited outside while she went into a classroom with a glass panel overhead that read 'CLASS 1-1'.

I really hated being a man in a female-dominated world. When I was seven years old, some high-ranking politician in the US had given a speech in which she said, "Given the centuries that women spent as the property and playthings of men, is it not fair that we spin the wheel and reverse the positions of power of the sexes?"

When we watched that speech, my dad had laughed and said, "Sten, don't ever let anyone, man or woman, tell you who to be."

I heard my name called and took a deep breath as I stepped past the threshold. I regretted the stepping bit in about half a second. There were about twenty-seven girls in the class. About half started squealing, while others were saying various things that I couldn't pick up on. I was pretty sure a few asked me out, too.

"Don't just stand there, moron, introduce yourself."

I turned to the teacher's desk and would have let out a squeak if I were any less manly.

If there was a word for how exploded my brain got when I saw who was standing there, it had to be scarily long. For standing there in a stern-looking suit not unlike Chifuyu's was my:

"_Mom_?!"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the woman who'd abandoned me and my dad when I was five was standing in the middle of my classroom. You think _your_ first day of high school was awkward? Beat that.

The tall, brown-haired woman rolled her eyes and snapped, "That's Miss Murdoch!"

I just made odd noises like _gak_ and _uck_.

Maybe I should explain. My mother was among the first of the IS pilots, the first Representative Contender for Canada. Before that, she'd wanted to have three little girls with my father.

My older sisters, twins, were born two years before me. Then I came along and my parents' marriage fell apart. She took my sisters and left two weeks after the IS was announced. We'd never heard from her again, but we saw her on TV during the first and second Mondo Grossos.

"Introduce yourself, dammit!"

Holy crap, she was scary! Feeling like I would be set on fire if I didn't, I turned back to the class and opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a little puff of air. Every pair of eyes in the room seemed to glint maliciously as I looked out at them all.

"U-uhhh- hi. I'm S-Sten Murdoch. I'm new to all of this, obviously, so take it easy on me, please."

The commotion started up again before my mom yelled to shut the hell up. "There's a seat there," she said.

She pointed to a desk at the dead front and center of the room. Cringing, I sat down and dropped my stuff beside the desk. "Well," mom said, "I'm obviously not your teacher. Miss Yamada and Miss Orimura are going to be a few more minutes, then they'll get started with your lessons."

So, we all waited for the longest two minutes and twenty-seven seconds in my entire life. The places on my back that everyone behind me were staring at felt like they were melting away. I looked over at Houki for some backup, but she looked away from me as soon as I saw her.

Was she staring at me?

Eventually, Miss Yamada walked in. "Thanks for watching them, Miss Murdoch!" she said cheerily.

"Not a problem. Just make sure you watch the boy closely. He's a trouble maker."

WHAT?! HOW THE HELL DO YOU FIGURE THAT?!

"I'll be sure to keep an eye on him," the woman said as Chifuyu walked in. I really couldn't tell where Yamada was from. She didn't look completely Japanese. Maybe half European, but her accent said North American. I really hate genetics...

"Oh, I'm sure you will, Maya," the former Champion teased, smiling.

I hung my head and sighed. Was this really the typical all-girls school atmosphere?

Yamada sputtered unintelligibly for a few seconds before Orimura let her off. My mom left the room as Chifuyu stepped behind the lectern that sat behind the desk.

"Okay, class," she began, "As you're all aware now, we have a new student. He's the only boy in the world who can move an IS, obviously, so he doesn't know how things work around here. That gives you all a pretty significant advantage over him both academically and tactically, so try not to give him a hard time, and help him out as best you can. Got it?"

The way she said 'got it' made it sound like a threat.

"Yes, ma'am!" they shouted in unison. Must've taken them a lot of practice to get that down right.

Only boy in the world...

I swear, no matter how I grew up, never in my life did I feel more alone than that moment.

* * *

Huzzah. I'd survived my first lesson without rupturing an artery. Barely. I could hear girls muttering odd things about me from all around the classroom, and when I looked to my right I saw about a hundred other fifteen and sixteen-year-old girls, all gawking at me like I was some sort of super-interesting museum exhibit.

"Someone, pleeeeease get me out of this shitty situation!" I muttered, resting my forehead on my desk.

A few seconds passed before a finger tapped against the back on my head. I flipped my head onto my chin and looked up to see Houki standing there with her arms crossed, looking down at me.

Literally, I mean. She was physically looking down at me.

...

Nope, she was probably looking down at me in terms of gender as well. Have I mentioned how much I hate gender inequality? Well I do. A lot.

She turned her head to look at the door and asked, "Can we talk for a while?"

Of all the things I expected the Japanese girl to say, that wasn't one of them.

"Uhh, yeah. Sure."

I stood from my desk and followed her out of the room. The horde split down the middle to let her through, repelled by the power of the Houscowl.

Get it? Houki-Scowl?

...

What, no?

...

Fine. You suck.

Anyway, she led me up to one of the roofs of the tower's five-storey first-year wing. She walked over to and leaned against the north-west railing.

A cool breeze sailed past us and I briefly enjoyed it. The air wasn't as fresh as I was used to, but I could live with that.

"So, what's up?" I asked, pocketing my hands.

"Huh?" she replied.

"You call me up here to tell me 'huh'? Sounds almost like something I would do," I smiled and moved to stand beside her.

She turned to me quickly and snapped, "Are you calling me a tomboy?! I will _so_ hit you!"

She was giving me that glare that could cut through steel again, but I could still see the red tint of her cheeks as she turned to me.

Oh, so _that's_ how it is.

I shot her a bemused look from the corner of my eye. "I think you're reading a bit too much into it, babe."

"Don't call me that! It's not appropriate to call someone who you're not in a relationship with that!"

If her panties were any tighter her legs would have been cut right off.

I sighed and leaned my back against the railing as I crossed my arms, trying to get a better view of her face. I couldn't deny that she was attractive. Beautiful, even.

Even if her personality was a bit (VERY) disagreeable. Wouldn't be caught dead saying it, though. She'd probably kick me in the nads. "So, what should I call you?"

She turned back to the railing and looked down at the ground below. She started twirling a lock of hair around her forefinger and I had to wait a moment before she muttered, "Just Houki's fine."

"Well then, Houki it is."

I'm not good at awkward silences, so I laid a hand on the hand that was still on the railing and gave her a warm smile. "I've gotta thank you, Houki. If Chifuyu'd left me alone at the station, then I'd probably have gotten lost. I just hope we can get to be friends."

"Is-is that so?"

"So, getting back to what you wanted to ask me?" I said.

Her voice went quiet. "Oh, well... I just wanted to ask you how my sis-"

The bell rang before she could finish her sentence. "Well," I said, "We'd better get back to class."

I patted her hand then turned back to the stairs.

What I didn't see as I walked away was Houki holding the hand I'd touched and smiling to herself. Girls are really, _really_ confusing.

* * *

Miss Yamada was giving the second half of the lesson on the IS Core Network. The students were all listening raptly, meanwhile I was sitting with my nose buried in the pages of the textbook.

'This Active- _whatever_, and that Wide-Area contraption... WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?!' was what ran through my head. It felt like there wasn't any blood flowing to my brain at all.

"-you have any questions, Murdoch? Murdoch!"

"GAH!" my head snapped up in surprise to see Miss Yamada standing a foot or so in front of my desk. A few of the girls giggled at my expense.

"Well, uh...," I trailed off.

"Well, if you do, just ask me, okay? I am your teacher, after all!" this woman was very cheery. Also, woman was a bit of an overstatement. She couldn't have been more than twenty, but she acted much younger.

I lowered my head in shame and raised my hand. "Miss Yamada..."

"Yes? Don't be shy, Sten!" her smile would have been contagious in any other situation.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANY OF THIS!" I moaned, defeated.

"What? Not any of it?" she sounded distressed. Well, at least the teacher cared. "Is there anyone else here who doesn't understand what we've covered so far?"

Every girl in the class stayed silent. "Thanks, guys," I said back to them, "I feel real loved right now."

"Murdoch," Chifuyu rose from the desk and walked toward me, "Did you read the reference manual before school started?"

"That's a _terrible_ question! You know who the hell I was living with, Chifuyu- ack!" she whacked me over the head with the steel attendance clipboard.

"That's Miss Orimura!"

"Yeah, whatever. Point is, I had two options. Read IS manuals or play tea party. What do you think I'd do?!"

No, the tea parties I mentioned earlier weren't a joke.

"I'll get you another copy, and I expect you to have it memorized within a week!"

"What?! That thing was the size of a world encyclopaedia and you want me to memorize it in a week?!"

She whipped around and glared me a most terrifying glare. "_What_ did I say...?" her tone was menacing.

"Wouldn't it be better to just learn the stuff more hands-on-like? I'd have it memorized in a day if I could use an IS."

"Shut up and do as I say!"

I closed my eyes and hung my head. "Yes, ma'am..."

A very awkward silence dominated the room for a while before Yamada continued with the lesson. "Well then, let's continue. Please turn to page 12 in your textbooks!"

* * *

'God, I would slap someone for a Klondike bar...,' I thought, lazily staring at the wide lectern.

"May I have a moment?" a girl said as she walked up to me. She looked the epitome of groomed elegance, with long blonde hair that curled slightly and bright blue eyes. A blue headband showed itself over her forehead before disappearing behind the blonde locks. She spoke with a heavy British accent.

"Huh?" I looked up at her to see her recoil in shock.

"My goodness, is that any way to speak to a lady?! You should be honored that I've _bothered_ speaking to you in the first place!" she said that like talking to me was detracting from her lifespan. "Don't you think you should behave in a more appropriate manner?"

"Look, I don't even know you."

"What? How can you not know who I am?! I'm Cecilia Alcott! England's Representative Contender! The one who scored highest on the entrance exam!"

"Hold on, hold on! I have a question!"

"Well," she said, flicking her hair aside, "It is the responsibility of a _noble_ to answer queries from the lower classes. _Do_ go ahead."

"You said you're a Representative Contender. Got it. Mind explaining what the means, exactly?"

Her back stiffened and her voice went up at least an octave as she shouted, "This is _unbelievable_! I can only hope that _every_ Canadian man is not _this_ utterly devoid of knowledge! I mean, it's nothing more than common sense, honestly."

"Are you gonna tell me, or do you not actually know?" I asked, reclining my chair.

Her eyes seemed to twinkle a bit as she then said, "They are the chosen elites, selected by their countries to represent them as IS pilots! Surely you should be able to deduce _that_ from the name alone!"

"Yeah, that makes sense, actually."

"That's right, _I_ am one of the elite! It is a true miracle _and_ your good fortune to get to be in the same homeroom with someone like me! Oh, what an _incredibly_ lucky boy you are! Did _that_ get through that incredibly thick skull of yours? Hmm?"

"I got it! I guess I'm lucky," I responded, a little bit perturbed by her holier-than-the-one-who-thinks-they're-holier-than-thou attitude.

"Wait, are you making fun of me now?"

"Hey, you're then one who just said how lucky I am!"

She huffed and started circling my desk. Point taken, I guess.

"First of all, I'd like to know how you managed to enter this school with _no_ knowledge about _anything_. I heard that you're the only male who can control an IS, but you've been such a _terrible_ disappointment!"

"I try to keep the bar low when it comes to me."

"Hm. Well, in any case, since _I'm_ so remarkable, I can still find it in my heart to be considerate toward people such as yourself. So, if you do have questions, I wouldn't mind answering them if you were to beg with tears in your eyes. After all, I did defeat an instructor during the entrance exam, which means that I am an elite amongst the elites!"

"Oh, get over yourself."

"What?!"

"You're acting like you're superior just because you have a title I don't. Now, I've never been to Britain, so I don't know exactly how it goes there, but I know an inflated ego when I see one."

"How dare you! I-" the bell rang, signalling the end of the second recess. She seemed to burn with rage as I gave her a shit-eating grin and waved goodbye.

"We will be continuing this conversation later! Do you understand?!"

Without waiting for an answer, she stormed off.

"Try loosening your panties!" I shouted to her. I could see her blush from across the room, and I smiled in success.

Making enemies the first day isn't exactly a good idea, but hey, what the hell.

- IS -

I left the school as soon as I was allowed, which was after club meeting time. I, of course, wasn't in a club, so I was thoroughly occupied with orientation.

I was basically told to comport myself like the perfect gentleman at all times and to stay the f*ck away from the girls' locker room.

Please, do I look like I have a death wish? Like I need to be told to stay away from the hive of girls who probably haven't seen a boy in years. I like to keep all of my body parts on my person and off trophy shelves, thank you very much.

By 7:00 I was on my way to the first year dormitories with my backpack and pillow, and a little briefcase with the textbook and some basic supplies in it. Pencils, paper... you know, that stuff that everyone has to have but no one actually uses anymore.

The dorms were three ten-storey buildings laid out in a three-pointed star, with a small common building in the middle. The building with the blue lines was the one I was going to: the first year dorm. The yellow was for second years, and red for the thirds.

So, there I was, standing in front of the elaborately carved wooden door of room 1025, with a pillow and a backpack, fumbling for my key. Finally managing to snatch it from the convenient belt-mounted slot-holder-carrier-thing, I put the metal security key into the lock and turned it.

Now, I knew that governments had spared no expense on luxury for students at the ISA, but what I saw still made my jaw drop. There was a bathroom just to my left as soon as I entered the room, and a kitchenette to my right. Past that, the room ballooned into a respectable size, with a pair of beds to the left, each featuring a night table on either side. There was a privacy wall that slid in and out of the wall between the beds. To my right was possibly the biggest desk I'd ever seen, somehow managing to cover the entire wall. It was divided in two by a shallow groove down the middle, and two thin as paper computer monitors hung from the wall above the tabletop on either side.

The back wall was a sliding glass door out onto a nicely sized balcony. I whistled, extremely impressed.

As I stepped over to the far bed I tossed my stuff onto the desk and stretched my arms.

I then noticed two things. One, there was a bag on the floor at the foot of the bed I'd been about to claim with a bokken and a kendo shinai sticking out.

Two, that constant noise that I hadn't registered in the background suddenly disappeared, and I heard wet footsteps.

Shit! Girl!

The door to the washroom opened and I heard a somewhat familiar voice. "Is someone out there?"

Double shit! Familiar girl!

"Oh, hey, you must be my roommate. I look forward to having some company, finally."

A tall, brown haired girl stepped out of the washroom wrapped in a towel, gently drying her hair with another. "Sorry to meet you like this, but I just got out of the shower," she lifted the towel and opened her eyes, "My name is Houki Shinon-"

We both froze. Her, out of shock.

Me, out of sheer, utter terror.

She sorta stared at me for a bit, her face as vivid a red as her towel was pink.

"S- St- Sten?!" she cried.

"Uh... Hi?" My mouth just hung open as I tried desperately to avoid staring at the ample breasts that were about three seconds from popping out of the towel.

...

At which point she realized that she was mostly naked and wigged out.

"Gaaah! Don't look!" she screamed, using her arms to cover herself a bit better.

I meeped and whirled around. "Gah, sorry!"

"What the hell are you doing in here?!"

"Oh, well, uh... I sorta live here."

Houki just growled angrily. Her eyes flicked to the side, toward her bag.

I put my hands out in surrender. "Don't you dare go for that bokken."

_Big_ surprise, she went for the bokken. I would've grabbed her, but her towel would have come off, which, while enjoyable to my eyes, probably would've been bad for my health, methinks.

"YAAAAAAAH!" she screamed, lunging at me.

I immediately ran for the exit, left the room and closed the door. Collapsing against it, I started to relax.

Rather, I would've if the tip of the bokken hadn't come through the door and grazed my ear. "What the hell, Houki?!" I shouted, doing my best to dodge the blows that burst straight through the hardwood door.

Looks like I was wrong. The international committee had definitely skimped on door construction.

"Stop it, you crazy- agh, GIRL!"

Couldn't bring myself to call her a crazy bitch.

Finally, the damned thing came through and stabbed against my back. I went tumbling away from the door with what would probably turn into a bruise of a nice shade of purple.

"That HURT, Houki! Trying to kill me isn't freaking funny!" I snapped, genuinely angry.

The sword was still embedded in the door as I sat up and dusted off my shirt. At which point I noticed the horde had amassed around me. I was surrounded by a large number of girls in night clothes.

"Oh, so this is Murdoch's room?" one of them said.

"That's a nice bit of info to have!" the one beside her said.

They were all muttering odd things that, in all honesty, I really didn't want to hear. I got up, gulped, and calmly walked back to the door.

"Houki?" I said politely.

No answer.

"Oh, Supreme Mistress and Lady of All the Universe? I, your humble subject would be most appreciative if you were to open the damned door."

Still nothing. The horde was gradually moving closer. A vision passed through my head of me being dragged into a dark room by my ankles, my fingernails leaving trails in the floor.

I asked a few more times before the bokken startled me as it came out of the door. I fell back and looked up to see Houki standing there in a kendo outfit. Odd sleepwear, but hey, who am I to judge?

Thanking her profusely, I scurried inside. She sat down on the bed I'd wanted to take for myself, but I didn't argue. If I had a weapon, I might've, but at that moment I was unarmed, and she had both anger and a pointy wooden sword.

Plus, it was _her_ bed.

"So," she said suspiciously, "Now it seems you're my roommate."

"An astute observation," I closed my eyes and crossed my arms.

"Just what are you trying to pull, Murdoch?"

"What?" my look of shock was-

...

Umm... What's the word I'm looking for?

Ah, to hell with it! Moving on!

"I asked what the hell you're trying to pull! Don't you know mixing genders past age seven is... It's just wrong!"

I sighed and scratched the back of my neck. Great, I'm roomed with a crazy Japanese swords-woman with inter-sexual ideals from 500 years ago...

Seriously! Whose stupid idea was this?!

"Sounds like you're just a prude to me, Houki," I said, recrossing my arms as I sat down on my bed again, "But you're right, I may be unable to contain myself in the face of such beauty, lay you upon the floor and take you in a manly way."

I'll admit I was trying to get on her nerves a bit. Can you honestly blame me? She acted like I was going to rape her just because I have (present tense) a penis!

Beyond that, she was turning very interesting shades of red. I was pretty sure I could actually see steam coming out of her ears, too.

"You- _you_- YOU!" she stammered, obviously trying to force a sentence out of her furiously blushing face.

"Me- _me_- ME!"

"You requested this room, didn't you?" she finally asked, her tone calming down a bit. Then again, her tone would suggest that she was reprimanding a small child rather than someone her age, and a good deal larger than her. Then she got angry again, "You asked them to put us in here together!"

"I'm clingy, but not _that_ clingy, babe."

"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT CALLING ME THAT?!"

Next thing I know, I'm on one knee, the blade of her sword caught between my palms. Beyond the fact that the wood wasn't exactly meant to be grippable in the first place, Houki was very, _very _strong.

"You've gotta be kidding!" I did my best to shout that, but it just came out as a loud whisper.

"KIDDING, AM I?! I'LL SHOW YOU KIDDING! I get it, I GET IT!" she was flat out growling now. That, and putting all of her weight behind the bokken.

"Scary face... Very scary face," I gave her a strained smile as I was gradually forced back. I wasn't weak by any means, but HOLY CRAP, WOMAN!

Faintly, I heard voices behind me. "Shinonono's so bold..."

"Quit wiggling, it's hard to see!"

I fell forward when Houki stopped her slash and let the bokken hang at her side. Oh, thank god... I thought I was a goner...

"Shoot, it's over...," the first voice said.

"Just when it was getting good...," said the second voice.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see four or five girls slinking away from the Swiss cheesed door, and I let out a tired breath.

It's official, I thought, high school sucks!

Houki immediately ran over and slammed the door shut. I hadn't noticed, but she was panting just as much as I was.

"Sten..."

"What? Wanna try to run me through again? Is that it? Ha, do your worst!" I collapsed backward onto my back and raised my right fist in defiance.

Surprisingly, she chuckled a bit. "I think that as long as we're sharing the same room, we should establish some ground rules."

"No panty raiding! Got it!" I slowly got up to my feet and finally kicked my shoes off beside what was now my bed. The cream-coloured sheets and duvet looked warm and comfortable.

"Well, that better go without saying. Regarding shower usage, I'll use it between 7:00 and 8:00 PM, and you can use it from 8:00 to 9:00."

"How about we both just use it when we need it?"

"Are you saying that I might not get to use the shower after club activities?"

"You mean activities like kendo? I thought that there were showers at the club building."

"Yeah, but I really don't feel relaxed unless I shower here!" she was getting a bit more stern, so I reciprocated.

"And _I'd_ like to use the can at my own place instead of having to use the ones at school," I rebutted. Then a realization smacked me in the face. "Oh wait, there aren't any toilets in the rooms, are there?"

Houki turned to look at the door. "That's right, there's only lavatories at the end of each hallway..."

I leaned against the desk and groaned. "Jeez, you'd think that someone would've realized that this place is an all-girls school! But, worst case scenario-"

I was interrupted by the bokken poking into my cheek. At this point I was extremely unimpressed.

"I see you're quite a pervert, Murdoch! I'm very disappointed!" Houki said.

"Wha's dat shupposhed ta mean?" the bokken was making me sound funny.

"You want to go into the girls' washroom! What else can you call that besides perverted?!"

"Pragmatic."

"UGH, I should punish you right now!" she raised the freaking bokken again and prepared to strike me.

"Won't catch me off guard this time!" I ran, grabbed her bamboo shinai and yanked it out of the bag.

I knew as much about kendo as a limbless orangutan, but I'd figure it out- why was Houki blushing? Nearest I could tell I was fully clothed.

I looked at the sword in my right hand and saw a piece of clothing hanging from the tip. I plucked it, and about five seconds later realized what it was. "Well, so much for the underwear rule," I said, trying to be funny.

"GIVE IT BACK!" she cried, snatching the bra from my hand, "Hands off, you pervert!"

I just dropped the shinai (big mistake), crossed my arms and closed my eyes as I nodded in a most sagely manner. "Well, Houki, I never would'a guessed it, but it looks like you wear a bra."

This time the bokken goose-egged me right on the forehead.

- IS -

The next morning came way too early for my taste. I was used to waking up at 9:00, taking a run and practicing Whoopass Fu, a fighting technique my dad and I developed, then mucking about the woods all day with my dog, Foofle (so named because it sounded funny).

Houki knocked my ass out of bed, quite literally, at about 7:05. She then proceeded to yell my ear off about getting the hell dressed so we could leave.

I changed my underwear, put on my jeans from yesterday, threw on a bright yellow shirt with a smiley face on it and brushed my teeth before Houki and I left.

The walk to the mess hall was shorter than the one to the school building, thank god, but it was still annoying.

I was sitting beside my irate roommate, eating quietly. While Houki was eating some Japanese stuff that I couldn't be bothered to remember the name of, I was having.

Sorry, I just need to start a new sentence for everything I was eating.

Two enormous pancakes, three scrambled eggs, six slices of back bacon, eight slices of white toast with peanut butter, four strips of regular bacon, two large Ukrainian sausages (the coiled kind), three servings of home fries, two bowls of some crappy bran cereal, and a bucket of milk. By bucket, I mean I literally had a bucket full of milk. There were a few other things too. And by a few, I mean I'm too lazy to even list half of what I was eating.

You could say I'm a pig. I call it monopolizing.

Anyway, Houki was scowling again. Seriously, how long can you scowl before your face freezes like that?

"Are you still mad at me?"

She swallowed a piece of fish. "I am not mad," she said snottily.

"Then why are you still wearing the mad face?"

"Get used to it, Murdoch."

"Oy..."

I went back to my pile of food. That sausage was calling my name!

As I ate faster than any human could possibly imagine, I listened to all the girls mumbling things about me. I heard some stuff about mom, but then... Olivia and Valerie were here?

"Hey, Houki?"

_*SLAM!*_

She stabbed her chop sticks right into the table's surface and shouted, "Don't use my first name!"

I sighed and tore off a bite of sausage. "_Miss Shinonono_..."

Before I could finish, though, someone tapped my shoulder to get my attention. I turned to see a trio of girls, two in the school uniform and one in a yellow... fox-shaped... coat.

"Murdoch, could we sit next to you?" the Japanese girl closest to me asked.

I smiled and pulled out the seat next to me. "Be my guest!"

They said their silent congratulations to each other and sat down.

"Wow, Murdoch," the fox-girl said, "You sure eat a lot for breakfast!"

"Such a typical boy!" the red-headed American girl in the middle of the newcomers said.

I looked over at their trays and cringed. The red-head was eating just a croissant, which, granted, was chocolate, the Japanese girl had a single fried egg, and fox-girl was only eating a freaking salad.

"Dear god, how do you people survive starving yourselves like this?" I asked, poking the Japanese girl in the side.

She jumped a little. "Well, uhh... I, umm..."

"I think we'll be alright," said the red-head.

"Because we eat a lot of snacks!" fox-girl cried, and DEAR GOD THE COAT'S EARS MOVED!

Houki then slammed her palms down on the table and pushed her chair out. "I think I'll excuse myself now," she muttered angrily.

You'd think she'd have gotten used to girls yelling all over the place by then.

"Oh, well, okay. I'll take care of your tray when I'm done."

"Sure. Thanks."

She then proceeded to stomp off in a huff.

The red-head leaned forward to get a better look at my face. "So you and Shinonono must be really close friends, right, Murdoch?"

"I heard you're even sharing a room," said the Japanese girl.

"Well I just met Houki yesterday, but I lived with her sister for a while before I came here."

"What? You lived with her sister?" the three asked in perfect unison. Seriously, how did they _do_ that?

_*Clap clap*_

The sound came from right behind me, and I turned to see Chifuyu standing there in what looked like a track suit. Why a track suit, you may ask? The answer eludes even me.

"Less talking, more eating!" the Teacher From Hell, as she was called, shouted, standing akimbo, "Pilots have to eat quickly and efficiently!"

I took an absurdly huge bite of home fries and chewed while she talked. "For those of you idiots who don't know, I'm the freshman dorm supervisor! Anyone late to class'll do twenty laps around the school!"

Her eyes burned with a passion that told me that threat wasn't empty. And, while I was quite a runner, I really didn't want to have to run laps on my second freaking day.

Now I saw why everyone found her so terrifying.

And, despite everyone eating as fast as they could, I still finished before all the girls.

I wondered what lunch was going to be...

21 Page


	3. Chapter 3

- 3 -

_"Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned"_

I pulled on the collar of my shirt as I read through the IS textbook, trying to make sense of what the hell Chifuyu was saying. To be honest, I didn't get much past 'boom'.

I really tried my best to follow along, but despite the reading I'd done before school started for me, I still didn't understand at all. When she finally finished, she turned back to the class before sitting behind her desk. "Well, we've now been in for a three weeks, and you all know what that means. It's time to nominate the class rep."

I sighed and fingered my datapad's stylus.

"The class rep with not only attend student council meetings and represent your class, but they'll also compete for you in the class tournament in two weeks. They'll essentially be your class leader. Now, do we have any nominati-"

"I nominate Sten!"

_THAT_ caught my attention!

"Wait, what?" I cried, standing up.

"Any other nominations? If not, he'll be selected by default," the teacher said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, just wait a damn minute! Maybe I don't want to be class rep! What then!"

"This is an _outrage_!" Cecilia cried, standing up as well, "Do you really expect me, the great Cecilia Alcott, to sit back and be represented by a _boy_ for an entire year? I'll not have my class being represented by this monkey!"

I turned, a look of disgust on my face. "_Excuse me_? Who the hell you calling a monkey?!"

"Add to that, he's from a country with such an underdeveloped level of culture-"

"Oy! Shut it, Blondie!"

The entire room went dead silent. Cecilia's jaw dropped as she put a hand to her chest and gasped. "How dare _you_, a mere commoner, insult _me_?!"

I punched a fist down on the desk behind mine and yelled, "Canada may not be as old as Britain, but at least we have food that people can eat without _gagging_!"

I let that hang in the air for a bit, relishing how shocked she was that a _boy_ was sassing her. In today's society, it was fairly rare for a man to talk back to a woman.

Problem with me being the fact that I'd grown up with an extremely proud father to learn from. As far as dad was concerned, gender superiority could suck a big one.

"This calls for a duel!" she yelled, walking over to me with a pointed finger raised.

"You sure about that, Blondie? It may be a woman's world but a man can still kick one's ass!"

"Ha! Very well, believe that paltry fantasy if you wish!"

"How much of a handicap will there be?"

The entire class, Chifuyu included, started to laugh. "Are you asking me for a favor already?" Cecilia managed to get out between laughs.

I gave her a lopsided smirk and chuckled. "Actually, I was asking how much of a handicap _I_ should give _you_."

If anything, the laughter only got louder.

"Are you kidding me?" someone in the class said.

"Men _used_ to be stronger than women, but that was before the IS!" another laughed.

"People say that if men and women had a war, it wouldn't even last _three_ _days_...," yet another whispered.

"Don't make me laugh," Cecilia said, "You've flown an IS once, and it wasn't even in actual combat!"

My smirk faded. I could take a verbal punch, but an entire class of girls laughing at the notion that I could beat up a 5' 5" blonde girl hurt quite a bit. I shrugged it off, though.

"You know," one of my classmates said, pulling at my arm, "If you ask nicely, a _real_ lady might still give you that handicap."

I started to laugh, which silenced everyone some. "And a real man never backs down from a challenge. I'm fine, thanks."

"You're underestimating her..."

I glared at her. "And _you're_ all underestimating _me_."

Silence hung in the air for a moment before Chifuyu said, "Fine, then. The fight'll be staged in a week in arena three. Alcott, Murdoch, I expect you both to come fully prepared for combat."

I turned to the former IS League Champion and crossed my arms. "Teach, I was _born_ ready."

- IS -

It was early on Thursday morning before Sten really got used to having to wake up at 7:00 every day. Or rather, 7:00 was the time when Houki woke up and saw him pulling his uniform on. In reality, Sten woke at 6:00 every morning and ran two laps around the school before practising a bunch of kata with a five-foot-long stick he'd found, using a style that, while effective-looking, Houki had never seen before.

The Japanese girl watched from a bench several dozen meters away as Sten balanced one-handed on the end of the stick, the other end planted firmly on the smooth asphalt ground. His shirt had long since been discarded, and Houki couldn't help but be impressed.

While he acted fairly laid-back and relaxed when they would sit and discuss their studies together, he was very physically imposing.

Sten let himself drop and landed on his feet before roughly grabbing the stick and bringing the end up to strike his imaginary target's chin. He then spun around, guiding the other end of the stick into the gut before swinging his elbow out and crushing its nose. He then ducked and swept the leg, got up and slammed the stick's end against the windpipe, ending the imaginary fight. He wiped his sweaty forehead and started walking back to where he'd left his shirt and water. That was when she finally noticed a trio of long, faded scars etched into his side below his right arm. What could he have possibly done to get those?

He looked up and would have noticed her had she not whipped back around the corner, hand clamped over her mouth.

Holy crap, that was close...

'He may have a chance,' Houki thought as she slunk off, 'But he's still gonna get his buff handed to him. I-I mean his butt! I said butt!'

* * *

I decided I hated my desk. It was shiny and my place in the class gave me a fine glare from the sun all freaking day.

Chifuyu walked in and dropped a black briefcase on her desk before turning back to the class. "Murdoch," she said, "Unfortunately, it's going to be a while before your IS is ready for you."

"What?"

"On the plus side, due to certain... issues, your, umm... _benefactor_ will provide you with a Personal IS."

That set off some chatter throughout the class. I knew what a Personal Unit was, obviously, but...

"Is it really _that_ big of a deal?" was _my_ question.

I would've continued had Cecilia not dashed in front of my desk and given me a haughty smirk. "I'm actually not surprised at all that this is beyond your knowledge. But, as an elite _it is_ my responsibility to educate the common pilots such as yourself!"

With a groan, I rolled my eyes and slammed my forehead against my desk. Surprisingly, the white metal wasn't very hard. In fact, I left a rather nice forehead-shaped impression in the surface.

"As there only 4670 IS units worldwide, those who are given a Personal Unit are considered the elites among elites!"

"_Only_ 4670?!"

Another classmate I didn't know leaned over to offer her two cents. "The reason there are only so many IS is because the one who manufactures the Cores, the IS' key component, Tabane Shinonono, has refused to make more than a certain amount. As such, all other nations are forced to rely on Japan in terms of the IS industry. And before you ask, no, no one other than Doctor Shinonono can create a Core."

"Well, that's stupid," I said, "It makes perfect sense, but still."

"Either way," Cecilia continued, "It simply wouldn't be _fair_ if you were to attempt the fight in a training unit while _I_ used my own _Personal_ IS!"

"Wait, you have one of these Personal Doohickeys too?"

"That's right! I, Cecilia Alcott, Representative Contender for the glorious nation of Great Britain, am currently in possession of my own-"

"You just love the sound of your own voice, don't you?"

She gasped. "I can't believe you said that!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not one to hold back when it comes to speaking my mind."

Chifuyu coughed, so I turned back to the front of the class. Cecilia, still standing beside my desk, turned too.

"To conclude our little history lesson, Personal IS were originally only intended for those sponsored by governments or corporations, however, your case is exceptional. Therefore, you will be provided with a personal IS for data collection. You can thank Rabbit Ears later."

Lovely. I was gonna be the only one in the world with an IS who wasn't tied down by a governing body. My favourite.

Actually, wait... Why am I being sarcastic about that? That's a _good_ thing.

The girl sitting beside and behind me on the right spoke up. If I remembered correctly, her last name was Takatsuki. "Miss Orimura, do you know if the Miss Shinonono in our class is related to Doctor Shinonono, by any chance?"

"Actually," Chifuyu said, "Your classmate is her little sister."

Oh, here we go...

A commotion then ensued. Girls started shooting all sorts of denials and questions at poor Houki. Tabane had told me that she and Houki had a pretty screwed up relationship, and that they'd both done hurtful things to each other. Tabane, when she unveiled the Infinite Stratos on the day of Houki's middle school kendo tournament, and Houki... Well, Tabane never told me what she did.

"She has nothing to do with me," Houki said loudly, shushing everyone, "I'm not my sister, and there isn't anything I can tell you about her."

I looked over at the Japanese girl and felt nothing but sympathy. I knew how it felt to be hurt by family members.

I latently noticed Chifuyu telling Miss Yamada to start the lesson, and I opened my textbook back to page 67.

The petite, green-haired woman stepped up to the lectern and activated the lesson program.

"The IS deploys a special energy barrier that serves as protection for its pilot. The Unit's system actually has something similar to a consciousness, so through shared dialogue and time spent together, the two of you will actually get to know each other!" she said, pointing to a hologram. I watched as multi-coloured lines spread between a picture of a person and an IS, "Depending on the amount of time a pilot spends controlling an IS, it begins to understand the user's characteristics. When you and your IS reach a certain level of synchronization, it will undergo what's called First Shift. When this occurs, the IS will exhibit abilities and weaponry more suited to your style. Another form of Shift exists as well. This is called Second Shift, however, no IS has ever achieved it, no matter how much time the pilot spends with it."

I started reading a paragraph about First Shift, but it may as well have been written in Chinese. Actually, bad example. I could speak Chinese.

Swahili, then.

"Since the two of you will grow together, instead of thinking of the IS as a tool, try to think of it as your big mechanical partner!" Yamada finished, "Are there any questions?"

The girl beside me to my right spoke up with an incredibly stupid question. "Yes, Miss Yamada? By partner, did you mean boyfriend or girlfriend?"

I slammed my head into my desk again.

Miss Yamada jumped and her cheeks reddened. "Oh, I'm not sure!" she stammered, "That is, I'm not experienced that way, so I don't know! Oh, but I wonder..."

She closed her eyes, cupped her cheeks and swayed side to side, a dreamy expression on her face.

"You are _soooo_ cute!" I heard someone say, amongst other things about how cute she was, which, I had to admit, she _was_.

I stood up sharply and threw my arms up. "That's it! I give up! I surrender! I do as the French do! Someone just end it, please!"

"Murdoch, act your age!" Chifuyu snapped from the desk.

"Gak!" I shouted, clasping my hands over my heart, "Now, I die!"

_*Whack!*_

Seriously, there had to be some sort of rule- nay, _law_ against hitting students over the head with steel attendance clipboards.

Three hours of gibberish on something called an Equalizer later, it was time for lunch. Most of my classmates were still in the room, talking about what they wanted to eat but weren't going to go for lunch. I, personally, was going to have (list has been deleted due to length).

I looked over at Houki, who was staring off into space again. She looked sort of unhappy. I know, when doesn't she? But still, she looked like she could use some company. I walked over to her and took a knee beside her desk. "Hey, you okay?"

She turned to me and frowned. "What do you want?" she asked harshly.

I bit my lower lip before responding, "You look unhappy. I'm just making sure you're okay."

She looked away. "I'm fine."

"No you're not."

She turned and glared again. "And what do you know?"

"I know someone who's hurting when I see one," I said, clasping her wrist, "Now come on. Let's go get lunch. I hear they've got some pretty mean barbecue."

Houki tried to yank her wrist away but I held fast. "Let go, dammit!" she yelled.

"Houki, just wai-"

"GAH!"

She punched me square in the chest and sent me to the ground. Everyone gasped, but I looked over to see Cecilia chuckling, a hand over her mouth as she smiled.

I looked back up at Houki, who looked about ready to tear my throat out. "So this is what I get for asking you to lunch to apologize?"

"You should've let go."

"I'm a persistent prick. Now come on."

This time I didn't bother waiting for objections. I just grabbed her wrist and started walking. Behind me, Houki stared at my hand and thought hard. Maybe she was finally coming around?

...

Nah.

* * *

The mess was about as full as it was at breakfast. Pretty much the only difference was the pillars around the room were displaying a different menu. Houki and I were in line, waiting for our food. Or rather, she had her food and we were waiting for mine. What can I say, hehe...

"You didn't have to get so upset. I'm just trying to look after you," I said, trying to remain civil with her. She certainly didn't make it easy. My dad probably would've killed her by now.

"Yeah?" she said in the defiant tone of a child, "And who asked you to do that?"

"No one _has_ to ask me to do that, Houki. You're my roommate, and I care about you."

She glared up at me. "What? What's that mean?"

"Look, I owe a lot to your sister, and beyond that, you're the only friend I have here, _and_ my roommate. All I'm asking is that you let me in a little, okay?"

Her gaze softened a bit and she looked down. "Well... I guess..."

The lunch lady tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a trio of trays that were all stuffed to the point that if so much as a grape was added, it'd probably all fall. I thanked the excessively round woman for putting up with my absurd diet.

"Dear god, since when did lunch turn into midday jenga?" I sighed, balancing one of the trays on my head and taking the others on either hand. "Hey, Houki, you see any tables on the way in?"

"Yeah," she said, "There's one over here."

I followed her over to a round table in an alcove in the east wall. The seat was comfy, and the table actually fit my whole meal. Without further ado, I dug in. With proper table etiquette, of course.

Etiquette meaning that I didn't eat anything bigger than my face in one bite.

Houki quietly ate her daily special, which looked to be more fish.

"Hey, Houki?"

"What?" she asked, looking up from her meal?

"Would you be willing to tutor me on the IS? Because I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have some trouble beating Blondie the way things are going."

She put down her chop sticks and fixed me with a sort of 'you're a moron' look. I was really feeling the love.

"You let her provoke you, Murdoch."

"Would you _please_ just call me Sten?"

"Oh, well, um... Fine. Sten."

So, she left me without an answer. Lovely. Now, my manly pride would be torn to shreds by a little blonde British girl who was half my size.

I managed to kill my first tray before Houki even finished her fish.

"Excuse me?" someone said. I turned to see a girl, obviously older than me, judging from the red ribbon around her collar that signified her as a third year, standing beside my table, "Aren't you the one everyone's talking about? You're going to compete against a Representative Contender, but you've never _really_ flown before. If you want, I could teach you lots of things about the IS."

I was seriously starting to doubt the wisdom of the screwball who decided to put me in this school.

I was about to respond when:

"No thanks," Houki said, "Actually, I'm the one who's going to be teaching him."

My head whipped around so fast I think I might've sprained my neck. "What?"

"But aren't you a freshman too? I'm a senior, after all," she tugged her ribbon, almost like she was bragging; "I think _I'd_ do a much better job showing him the ropes."

That's a tough argument to beat. Now, the rebuttal!

"Yes," Houki said, "But _I_ am Tabane Shinonono's sister."

And the crowd goes wiiiiild!

The senior squeaked in annoyance.

Finish her!

"But thanks for the offer," Houki finished, taking another bite of fish.

"Fine!" the senior snapped, "I guess some things just can't be helped!"

She stormed off in a huff, her feet actually stomping every step. I hooked an arm over the back of the sofa and watched as she went back to her table. "Shame," I said, "She was hot, too."

"Shut it, you," Houki said, "Your training's going to be harsh."

I laughed a bit and smiled at her. "Not that's what I wanted to hear! You're the best, Houki!"

And, as per typical, she blushed and whacked me.

- IS -

_*Whack!*_

_*Whoosh!*_

_*Bang!*_

_*Flop!*_

"Ow, dammit!" I cried landing flat on my ass as the shinai I'd been using hit the ground a few feet away.

"Argh! How can you be so weak?! You're not out of shape, so why can't you fight?!" Houki shouted, taking off her mask.

"I can't move in this damned armor thing, and I don't freaking know kendo! Do I need to draw you a diagram, or can you figure this out on your own?!"

"This problem definitely comes before the IS! Effective immediately, you'll be in training with me for three hours after school every day!"

"But I asked you to teach me about the freaking IS!"

"And _I_ said this problem comes BEFORE the IS!"

Oy... This just kept getting better and better...

* * *

I was changing out of that damn hakama in the locker room. Houki was a row of lockers over, probably blushing furiously at the fact that a boy was that close to her while she was naked.

No matter how shameless she thought I was, I wasn't _that_ low.

She kept shrieking for some reason. Well, not shrieking. More like an awkward outburst, like when you realize something.

"-alone with Sten every day! Gaaah! What am I thinking?!"

"What was that?" I called back to her. I heard my name, so I assumed she was calling me.

"AAH! Stop looking, pervert!"

"Houki, I'm on the other side of a freaking wall. I couldn't look if I wanted to," 'which I sorta do,' I added silently.

"Oh. Right..."

I was starting to think that being around me was rotting her brain. If so, she probably wouldn't survive the year.

The door opened on the other side of the room and someone walked in. Now at that point I was fully clothed and just waiting for Houki to leave so I could get out. She insisted that we had to change at our lockers, which meant that I had to wait for her to finish.

"Shinonono, where's Murdoch?" I heard from Houki's side. That was Chifuyu's voice.

"Other side," she said.

The teacher stepped out from behind the wall and walked toward me. She had a small briefcase case in her hand.

"Murdoch, this just arrived from you-know-who. She says that your IS is making progress, but she needs to make some final adjustments."

I took the case from her and weighed it in my hands. On the front was some writing. "Do not open until Chi-Chan says," I read, "Well, that really is original. My birthday isn't till early in August, though, so I assume this is IS related?"

"It's from her. Could it be anything else?"

"Point taken."

I heard the door open and close, so I knew Houki was done. I grabbed my backpack and was about to go when Chifuyu grabbed my arm and stopped me.

"I assume that by now you've figured out that Houki isn't exactly fond of Tabane," she said.

"It was pretty apparent from her reaction earlier today, yeah," I replied, pulling my arm free and leaning against the locker.

"I just need to tell you not to pry. She'll tell you if she wants to. Till then, just leave her be about it."

"This isn't anything I don't know, Chifuyu. I've told her that I'm here if she needs me."

"Good," she smiled thinly, "Now go get some rest. You've got a long week ahead of you, kid."

"No freaking kidding."

I didn't sleep a wink that night.

- IS -

"Houki?"

"Yeah?"

"I asked you to teach me about the IS, right?"

"Right."

"So why the hell was I learning kendo techniques all week?!"

Houki and I were both standing in the fourth pit in Arena 3 near a loading elevator. From what I'd been told, Cecilia was already in the air, waiting for me.

"Well, your IS hasn't arrived yet, so there's nothing I can do about that."

"Even without one, you still could have taught me stuff about the basics!"

"There's nothing I can do about it, so stop whining!"

I was seriously considering hitting her when the intercom buzzed. "Murdoch! Murdoch!" Yamada sounded a bit panicky.

"Yeah, Miss Yamada?" I asked, tilting my head up.

With excitement in her voice, the small woman replied, "Your Personal Unit is here!"

Chifuyu's voice then interjected, "Sten, get suited up and ready to fight."

I turned to Houki, who handed me the case that Chifuyu'd given me the week before. I hit the seal and it opened with a hiss. Inside was...

Oh, crap. Seriously?

"You're kidding me, right?" I asked critically, "You want me to fight in a freaking latex wetsuit?!"

"It's Not Latex," Chifuyu said pointedly.

"_Still_!"

"Would you rather fight naked?"

"HELL NO!"

"THEN SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS!"

Orders, my ass.

I huffed and proceeded to strip off my shirt and pants while Houki turned, her face as red as a stop sign. Extricating myself from my underwear, I slipped into the tight, rubbery outfit.

"YAH!" I cried, jumping a bit.

Houki immediately whipped around and ran to my side. "Sten? What's wrong?!"

I bit my lips in pain and hissed, "Nuts got caught."

If Houki could get any redder I decided I was going to give her an award.

A few minutes later I was standing in front of the freight elevator in the IS combat suit. It was really uncomfortable, and white in colour, with blue trim.

*Thunk!*

A great sound echoed out as the elevator doors opened and revealed one of the things I was going to remember for the rest of my life. It looked like Medieval armor, kneeling as if to pay respects to a great king. The hull was a dark, gunmetal grey and accented by the odd blue component here and there.

"This is Sten's Personal IS Unit," Miss Yamada cried, "The Paxis!"

Paxis, eh? I had no idea what that word meant.

All I could do was stare. It was spectacularly built...

It boggled my mind to think that in a few minutes I would be piloting that thing. The only words I could really use to describe it were 'strikingly beautiful'.

I stepped forward and laid a hand on the left wingpod. Closing my eyes, I waited for a few seconds for the instant connection that I'd felt when my mind had merged with the Uchigane a month ago. It didn't come, but I _could_ feel something...

"Is something wrong, Sten?" Houki asked, laying a hand on my shoulder.

"...no... It's like I can feel myself through its skin... Like we're the same person."

"Show that you entrust your life to it," Chifuyu said.

I slid my feet into the opened boot sections, which bolted and fastened themselves. A skirt of armor plates that reached my mid-thigh encircled my waist as the chest plate assembled on my suit. The gauntlets reached all the way to my elbows and covered every inch of skin. The edges of the armor were jagged and sharp, the sort of thing that would remind a person of a predator. The thick armor plates were surprisingly light, too.

Data flooded my mind as the Paxis started to initialize. The world as I perceived it seemed to expand. Colours became more vivid, and everything seemed to move a bit slower as my reflexes became heightened.

I felt like a totally different person.

"The amount of time we have to use the arena is limited," Chifuyu said, "So you'll have to learn to make it yours during the match itself."

"Make it mine?" I asked.

"Remember the lesson about the shared dialogue between you and the IS?" Houki said dryly.

"Oh, _that_."

A screen appeared in front of me and another IS appeared on it. "Miss Alcott's IS is called Blue Tears. It's a long-range-assault type IS," Yamada explained.

"Blue Tears, eh?" I turned to Houki. "Doesn't sound so tough."

"Equipped on every IS is a feature called Absolute Defence. It's designed to protect the pilot no matter the attack. However, such a deployment would severely deplete your shield energy! Do you get it?"

"Simply enough concept."

"So, Murdoch," Chifuyu said, "Are you feeling up to this?"

"Well, I look like a pimped out, latex-wearing Iron Man, but other than that, yeah! This'll be a piece of cake!"

The instructor chuckled good-naturedly. "We'll see."

I lifted my right hand and observed it. The fingers were slightly pointed, like short talons.

"Hey, Houki?"

She seemed to snap out of a stupor at the sound of her name. "Oh, um- Hmm?"

"Here we go."

"Yeah... Sten, WIN THIS!"

"As if I _could_ lose, Houki!"

With that I took my first step forward. The suit actually made me feel like I weighed less than I did _without_ two hundred pounds of steel covering my body. I planted both feet firmly on the launch plate and braced myself.

With a creak, the plate accelerated along its track, and hurled me out of the pit and into the bright arena.

I immediately banked left and hovered about a hundred feet off the ground, and maybe fifty from Cecilia. Her IS was, as the name would suggest, blue in colour, with some black stripes lining the leg armor. Unlike the pod-shaped thrusters - if they could be called thrusters at all - that the Paxis featured, the Blue Tears was outfitted with a pair of upside down, V-shaped wings, despite the thrust rings I could see glowing on her feet. Her gauntlets reached from the tips of her fingers to about halfway up her biceps.

Cecilia was smiling haughtily, as she always seemed to.

"Just so you know, this is your last chance!" the British girl's voice said through the IS' communication channel.

"For what?" I replied, wiggling my right-hand fingers. I was itching to see what this IS could do.

"It's _obvious_ to everyone here that I'm going to defeat you overwhelmingly. So why not apologize to me right now, and I just might be able to forgive you!"

"Hah! You call that a chance?! _No_ _one_ would take that offer!"

"Oh really? Well then, too bad for you."

A bright red window flashed to life with a warning.

_ENEMY IS ENTERING A FIRING POSTURE!_

I frantically looked back up at my opponent to see her raise a massive sniper rifle. "Time to say goodbye!"

A blue blast of energy exploded out of the barrel and hurtled toward me. Not knowing quite what to do, I raised my arms and took the blow head-on. Pain flared through my body as the shot knocked me clean out of the sky.

"Whoawhoawhaaaaaaaa-!" I screamed as I fell. I tried to focus, and I concentrated on my shoulder blades and willed the wingpods to give me some upward thrust. Just in time, they slowed me enough to land without a huge shock.

_*BOOM!*_

Another blast hit the ground just beside me and the Paxis sailed back into the air. I was tossed left and right as the machine I was supposed to be piloting essentially started piloting me. "Damn it," I cursed angrily, "I just can't keep up with Paxis' reactions!"

"Now you will dance! Yes! _Dance_, you uncivilised ingrate!" Cecilia cried with glee, her finger pulling the rifle's trigger as fast as it could.

"WHO YOU CALLING AN INGRATE?!"

I dodged left and ran right into another shot.

"Shit, my shield's weakening!" I said, noticing the display.

_SHIELD ENERGY: 417/600_

Before I knew it the number had dropped to 300.

"Gaaaah, where are my weapons?!"

Another window popped into view with an image of a broad-bladed katana on it. "What, that's it?!"

I dropped my altitude and skimmed the ground as another shot whizzed by my head. Frowning, I shouted, "Well, it's better than bare hands!"

I balled my right fist and hurled it to the side. In a flash of light, the katana appeared in my grasp.

"So, this is you brilliant plan? Challenging my long-range IS in hand-to-hand combat?!" she laughed.

"Yeah, well, I'm not really known for my bright ideas!"

I kicked off the ground and shot up toward her. I yelled a string of curses that widened a few eyes as I heaved the blade into a slash, but missed as she dodged downward.

Nearly fifteen minutes passed and I was just starting to get used to dodging when she finally stopped firing. I decelerated and hovered again, panting hard from all the exhausting movement. Remind me to never badmouth IS pilots ever again.

"You're the first opponent to last this long against Blue Tears, and for that I congratulate you."

"Why thank you, ma'am!" I smiled.

She shot me a coy look before shouting, "But, unfortunately for you, it ends here!"

The two blue wings that hovered behind her each split in two and flew after me.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" I screamed as they all started letting off blasts of blue energy at an absurd rate. Finally, one got a beat on me and I went into a tailspin toward the ground.

The BITs returned to Cecilia's IS and she raised her rifle again. "I'll take your left leg!"

She fired just as I managed to stabilize myself.

Time seemed to slow down as the blast shot toward me, a crackling miasma of energies that looked more like a lightning bolt than anything else. If it hit me just right, it would probably pierce my shield.

Suddenly, something clicked. I'd been home-schooled my whole life, and my dad wasn't a scientist, but I remember watching the movie TRON once. There's a scene where Flynn explains that a common point of physics is that any current of energy can be redirected.

Guess I was about to find out.

I raised my blade and hacked the bolt in two, ablating it.

Well, I'll be damned!

"Aw, bitch, shit gettin' serious now!" I shouted, starting to laugh.

The BITs launched again as I dove to the ground. I tried to essentially skate across the surface as I skilfully dodged every blast that I could and swished my sword through those I couldn't.

With a grunt, I jumped and accelerated to maximum speed, swinging the Paxis into a broad turn which brought me right up to Cecilia.

I took another swing but she dodged just as fast. What I noticed was that the BITs ceased fire when she moved, but started blasting again when she stopped...

"You're reckless, aren't you? But it's a pointless struggle!"

I banked and flipped as the BITs started doing flybys. Luckily, I managed to dodge the first few shots before spinning backward and bisecting one of the blue-painted drones.

Needless to say, more than a few people gasped.

"Now I finally get it!" I shouted, "The BITs won't move without your commands! That's the trick!"

I flipped myself upside down and cut another of her weapons down. "And there's more! You can't attack while you're in motion, because you're so dead focused on defence!"

She groaned in anger and the BITs resumed their assault. "Two more left...," I said to myself.

This was actually going better than I thought it would.

I dodged right before jetting over a blast, and held the katana in a one-handed ready stance as they circled me.

'But, I know they'll attack where my response speed is lowest...,' I thought.

Quick as lightning, the BITs maneuvered above and under me, quickly letting off a volley of bolts that would probably have stuck me full of holes if I hadn't been ready for it. I hurled Paxis to the right before bringing the blade up to clip the third BIT and down to slash the fourth apart.

"So, it's to my advantage to close the distance!" I finished my thought aloud, accelerating toward the blonde girl.

As I rapidly approached Cecilia, she victoriously said, "I see he fell for it!"

Say what, now?

My eyes widened as what I had assumed was just an armored skirt split, and a pair of small missile silos snapped up from where they'd been hidden, behind her thighs. "So sorry, but there are more than four!"

"Aw, shit."

I frantically did my best to avoid the two missiles she sent at me, and managed to for a few seconds, but the blast was inevitable.

They hit like pile drivers, but then everything flashed white, and suddenly I felt very cold.

* * *

"STEN!" Houki cried from the control room, looking over Yamada's shoulder.

Yamada gasped and frantically called out for the young pilot, but Chifuyu just smirked.

"That idiot," she said, "The IS saved him."

Houki and Yamada shared a 'what the hell is she saying' look, before they looked back at the monitor and immediately understood.

* * *

I breathed in slowly. The heavy smell of smoke from the explosion burned my nose and I pushed down a coughing fit.

Strength like nothing else flooded my body. Information shot back in forth in my head like lightning. Odd thing was, I could understand it. _All_ of it.

Of course, why my perception had changed was beyond me until I saw a pair of words in my mind's eye.

First Shift.

Son of a bitch.

My eyes snapped open to see that my IS had changed. Gone were the jagged edges that had shaped the IS' features, and in their stead were graceful curves and defined edges. The armor was now a silvery white colour with blue outlines, and the wingpods had opened to reveal wings made up of white and gold spikes that splayed to look like the wings of a falcon.

My chest plate felt lighter, and I looked down to see a blue circle about the size of my fist glowing brilliantly there.

As I revelled in the new power, a voice seemed to echo in my head.

FORMAT SETTING COMPLETE

ALL ABILITIES NOW AVAILABLE FOR USE

I smiled and gazed up at Cecilia, who looked like someone had just killed her dog.

"But... that's your First Shift? How is that possible? How could anyone have fought an entire battle like that with their IS in a default setting?!"

"I don't know, but it looks like this thing's finally mine."

My eyes fell to the katana that rested in my right hand. A screen popped up and finally it identified itself.

"Wait, this is... This is the Yukihira Nigata! That's the weapon Chifuyu used!" I said excitedly. Chifuyu had gone completely undefeated with this weapon, in _both_ Mondo Grossos. "Man, I have the best teacher _ever_!"

I sobered and gripped the hilt a bit tighter, but then something surprising happened. The Yukihira's blade split lengthwise and both sides collapsed in on themselves, leaving me with a Y-shaped hilt. As I started to ponder what good a hilt could possibly be, a three-and-a-half foot blade of light blue energy burst to life.

The weapon hummed a deep and intimidating pitch.

"I think we should end this now, Cecilia," I said, bringing the blade into a two-handed stance as I readied myself to attack, "It's about time I kicked your shapely rear to the curb!"

"Aagh!" the British girl cried, "You're such a pain!"

The silos let off another four missiles as I launched the Paxis into motion. "Too late for that, Blondie, _I've seen them now_!"

I swiftly cut down the first in an upward strike. The Paxis flipped as I cleaved another apart and flew between the last two. I was directly under Cecilia as they collided and I started a rapid ascent.

"Yeah, I can feel it! I CAN DO THIS!"

"YAAAAAAAH!" I screamed, flying straight up and hacking her rifle in half. Then, I brought my sword down on her shield.

The invisible barrier sparked between us as a meter appeared on my screen. Her shield energy dropped like a stone as the Yukihira ground at her. The gauge dropped past ten and then...

The ending horn buzzed.

THE MATCH IS CONCLUDED!

I laughed victoriously as I backed off from her and sent the Yukihira away. The blade disappeared in a swirl of light.

WINNER:

The feeling of pride I had was nearly euphoric. My first battle, and I'd-

CECILIA ALCOTT!

_Lost_?

"WHAT?!" I screamed.

"What?" she cried.

I heard a chorus of that question from the entire arena as I let my head flop back.

"**F**********CK**!"

* * *

I flew back into the pit feeling like the biggest loser ever. I challenged a girl and _I lost_! To a _girl_! In a _fight_! With _swords_! And _guns_!

Chifuyu was impatiently tapping her foot and, oddly enough, Houki looked concerned. Yamada just looked the usual. I let Paxis dematerialize into standby mode and just sort of stood there awkwardly.

No one said anything for a few minutes. Chifuyu was boring a nicely sized hole between my eyes with her serious glare. Houki had a really weird look on her face that was somewhere between concern, confusion and rage. Miss Yamada was glancing between them and me, contemplating whether or not she would die if she told me that I did really well.

Finally, I mustered the courage to break the silence. "Okay... Why'd I lose?"

Chifuyu sighed irritably. "Idiot. You lost because you used the barrier-null attack without considering how it would affect everything else.

"The barrier-null attack?"

"Which bypasses the enemy shield entirely by cannibalizing energy from your own shield to deliver the impact directly to their body, which activates the Absolute Defence. That's something only Yukihira can do. I have to admit, when I won the first Mondo Grosso, it was mostly as a result of that one ability."

"Oh. Well, that explains it."

"If you hadn't pissed away almost 500 units of energy before you underwent First Shift, you would've won."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I was only trying to avoid getting SHOT!"

Chifuyu huffed and rolled her eyes. I crossed my arms and tapped my right foot on the ground furiously.

It was the assistant teacher who broke the silence.

"When an IS' shield energy drops to zero, that competitor loses the IS battle. The barrier-null attack does damage your opponent, but in exchange it will cost you your shield. It's really a classic double edged sword," Miss Yamada said, pointing up at a screen that replayed the moment I'd slashed at Cecilia's shield.

"Right," Chifuyu agreed, "And it means your IS is defective."

"Oh, just my freaking luck."

"Actually, that was the wrong way to say it. An IS isn't complete to begin with, so it can't be defective per se, but since yours is so much more offense-oriented than others, it can't be handled the same way."

"What, so I could kill someone?" I asked sarcastically.

"Actually, yes."

I think I might have just had a coronary.

"Either way, you lost. Miss Yamada, explain the standby."

"Yes, Miss Orimura," the small woman replied as she took my right wrist.

I hadn't noticed before then, but there was a silvery bracer around my right arm. "Right now, Paxis is in standby mode, which usually takes the appearance of an accessory. However, it'll deploy immediately when you call it."

"Cool story."

Accessory, eh? I wouldn't call a piece of armor something akin to a necklace...

I was about to ask if I could go take a shower when Yamada handed me a phone book. Wait, that isn't a phone book- oh no.

"This is the Personal IS rules and regulations guidebook. Read it thoroughly," she said, smiling.

I cringed and turned the book over in my hands. The pages were so thin...

Chifuyu dismissed us, so Houki left while I changed back into my clothes and out of that god-awful suit.

* * *

It was sunset by the time Houki and I got back onto the main path to the first year dorms. The sky was a pale blue above our head, and when I gazed out over the ocean it looked like the blue faded into green and then to yellow, orange and red. It was all only a paltry spectacle compared to the deep orange disc of the sun as it slowly fell to the water, though. A trail of glowing orange water shot straight toward the shore.

I guess the brochure was right, after all.

Everything was tinted orange in the light, and Houki seemed to faintly glow, I could feel my heart beat a little bit faster as I turned back to the road ahead.

"Well," I said, "That went horribly. _And_, now she'll be the class rep."

I slung the IS suit over my right shoulder and huffed in annoyance. Houki said nothing, so I turned my head to her. "And what exactly does that look mean?"

Houki was staring at me, which wasn't at all like her. "Well... Are you, umm, upset that you lost?"

I smiled thinly and turned back to the road. "Eh, not really, I guess. Doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things."

"That surprises me a bit," Houki said, "You seem like the type to be upset over losing."

"What can I say, I'm full of surprises. Most of them unpleasant."

Houki giggled quietly, then returned to her serious self. "So, I guess tomorrow we should start some intensive IS training?"

I laughed and shouted, "Finally! The kendo beatings are done! I'm freeeeeeee!" I started spinning around with my arms thrown out to the sides, Sound of Music style.

Houki's face fell, and I stopped. "Hey, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Well, umm...," she seemed a bit apprehensive to finish, but she pressed on. "You _do_ want me to keep teaching you, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Houki! I'd rather ask you than anyone else here."

Her throat visibly caught before she said, "Okay, I understand, Sten. I have to, then!"

"Huh?"

"Right! I hereby agree to teach you about the IS!" she held out a hand for me to shake.

I cocked an eyebrow, smiled and held out a clenched fist.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking oddly at my hand.

"Just bump my fist with yours. It's less formal and more friendly than a handshake."

And so we bumped fists. Houki was a bit bemused at the concept of sealing a deal with anything but a handshake, but she shook it off quickly. "Fine, then. Starting tomorrow I want you to meet me every day after school at arena three, got it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" I saluted her.

She giggled a bit and walked off again. I stood still for a minute, just watching her. Houki Shinonono was possibly one of the most complex people I'd ever met. One second she's a girl who anyone could be friendly with, the next she's swinging that damned shinai.

But, there was one thing I knew for sure about Houki. As she walked away, back to the dorm building, she was beaming.

And in that moment, she was absolutely beautiful.

* * *

Elsewhere on campus, back at dorms, a certain young lady from Britain was standing under the head of her shower, revelling in the hot water that soothed her achy body.

Everything had been so clear cut before today. She was one of the best, and she had to act as such. It was no big surprise that she'd won the match. What really concerned her was that she'd won _by technicality_. The image of her shield readout that had been burned into her retinas refused to fade even slightly. It was like Blue Tears was still displaying it for her.

_SHIELD ENERGY: 2/600_

If the boy's attack had continued a split second longer, the outcome of that battle would have been different.

But still, she had won. That much, she could say for certain.

So _why_ was she feeling this way? Her heart ached in a way it never had before, and she felt a longing desire for something. _Someone_.

She clasped her hands and held them below her chin as two words, a name, escaped her lips.

"Sten Murdoch..."


	4. Chapter 4

- 4 -

_"The Other Other Woman"_

A few days had passed since the class rep selection match. We hadn't had Cecilia's inauguration party yet, but that was understandable.

Why, you may ask?

Because it was tonight!

I know. Huzzah, right?

I was in arena three in my IS suit, standing in ranks with the other thirty-odd girls in my class, all of whom were wearing the female version of what I wore. This consisted of three dark blue pieces: a pair of long, mid-thigh stockings and something that resembled the stereotypical Japanese school swimsuit. Minus the nametag across the chest, of course.

The material they were made out of, I'd learned, was called Notex. Which, in turn, was short for Not Latex.

Go figure, eh?

It was made of a type of conductive fibre that only transmitted neural impulses, which made the IS' movements sharper.

It was perfectly comfortable for girls, designed to cling to flesh so as to accommodate a wide range of movements. But for me, with... ummm... _low-hanging protrusions_, it was quite uncomfortable.

God, that sounded awkward.

Either way, I assume that you can figure out why I was having a hard time keeping my eyes focused on the ground, surrounded by so many latex- _Notex_-clad girls.

Chifuyu was standing in front of the class with her arms crossed, wearing her mysterious track suit as she talked to Miss Yamada.

I heard her say something along the lines of, "Okay, they have my approval. Talk to France and Germany after classes."

Yamada nodded and Chifuyu turned back to us. "Okay, class! Today we'll be practicing operating the basic movements and controls of the IS!"

Sounded simple enough.

"Murdoch! Alcott! You're both up first!"

Cecilia stepped out of ranks with a shout of, "Yes, ma'am," and moved off to the side.

She stopped and flicked the blue earring hanging from her right ear. Her body started to glow as the IS, Blue Tears, formed around her.

When the shining light dissipated, she was hovering a few feet above the ground in her blue armor. I could see that she'd had her BITs replaced.

I stepped off to the side as well and gripped my right wrist with my left hand. Closing my eyes, I focused on my bracer.

But, me being me, nothing happened.

"Hurry it up, Murdoch," Chifuyu yelled, "An experienced pilot should be able to deploy in just a few seconds!"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not an experienced IS pilot!" I yelled.

As I got irritated, my wrist started to glow. A little surprised, I threw my fist high in the air to facilitate the deployment, just like Houki'd taught me. A dozen ribbons of white light flew from my wrist and would have mowed down a few others if they hadn't ducked.

They looped back and started to wrap around my limbs instead. As it had when I first donned Paxis, the world seemed to expand; it was simpler and more clear-cut. I could see every detail of everything as my white and blue armor formed right onto my body and I was lifted off the ground.

The glow faded and Paxis revealed itself.

"Not bad, Murdoch," Chifuyu said, "Now, fly!"

Cecilia immediately lifted off; her IS shooting straight up at a very respectable speed. Well, if she could do it, so could I.

I focused on the wings that floated behind me and bent my legs. Then, with all of my strength, I jumped. The wings activated and gravity became a trivial thing as I soared upward at a pace that put Cecilia to shame.

"WAAAAAH!" I screamed, trying desperately to control the IS again. I slowed down and huffed in annoyance as Cecilia passed me again. Figuring that it didn't matter since it wasn't a race, I tried to keep myself steady at a three-hundred-foot altitude.

Chifuyu's voice rang in my head, projected over the IS Core communication channels. "You're too slow! According to the output specs, the Paxis is superior to her IS!"

I rolled my eyes and responded, "That may technically be true, but she's been doing this for years. I've been doing this for a freaking week."

"Experience isn't everything," Cecilia said, throttling back to fly beside me, "An image is just an image, no matter how you imagine it."

"You trying to say something, Blondie?" I asked. Cecilia and I had been on better terms lately. Enough so that I considered her a friend, even.

"The IS responds to what your mind says. You'll have a much easier time if you can figure out the methods of control that work best for you."

"Yeah, well that may be true, but I haven't exactly gotten used to flying the IS around just yet. Hell, I don't even know what makes it fly."

In my mind's eye, Tabane was shaking my shoulders from behind while I read a textbook, telling me to be more smarty-warty. She called me Stennie-kun, and pulled my ears every time I told her not to.

"Well, uh, if you're interested, I'd be happy to give you private lessons every day after school," Cecilia said. Her tone left me suspicious as to her actual intentions.

I raised an eyebrow.

"And when I do, it'll be just the two of us...," the British girl said quietly.

"What?" I asked, not quite hearing her.

"N-nothing!"

I shrugged. I then realized that shrugging wasn't a good idea, seeing as it angled my wings weirdly. I did my best to not smack into Cecilia while at the same time trying to stabilize myself. Just as I managed to, a channel opened again.

"Murdoch, Alcott," Chifuyu said, "Execute a power dive and come to a complete stop."

"Roger that!" Cecilia confirmed, before turning to me and winking. "Well, ladies first!"

At which point she gunned it. The Blue Tears went straight at the ground, and only decelerated to come in for a landing. It was smooth and seamless. The perfect maneuver.

"Well, I feel like shit now."

I would have shrugged again, but I was smart enough to remember stupid stuff not to do. I angled myself downward and gunned Paxis' thrusters. I had no speedometer, but I could tell I was going damn fast.

It was when the ground got a little too close for comfort and I was _still_ going fast that I realized something was wrong.

"Murdoch, decelerate! Now!" Chifuyu yelled.

I frantically tried to slow down, but the IS wouldn't let me.

"OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAAAAAAAAAAAP!"

And so it was that I slammed into the ground with the force of a small asteroid.

That's a lot less fun than it sounds, by the way.

My classmates gasped in shock as a rather large plume of rock and dirt flew up into the air and blanketed them.

"Sten!" Houki screamed, rushing to the edge of the arena's new crater. Yamada frantically followed her, while Chifuyu just sauntered.

Seriously, your student might have killed himself and you _saunter_?

The dust cleared as they got to the edge just in time to see Paxis dissipate.

I was starting to think the machine had a sense of freaking humor, because it left me with my head embedded in the ground. I planted my hands and feet and pushed as hard as I could. In my head, I screamed in effort.

My head came free very suddenly, and I was sent sprawling back. "Aw, man, I thought I was gonna die!"

"You idiot!" Chifuyu yelled, "Do you have any idea how much it costs to fill in a hole this size?!"

"Do _you_ have any idea how many brain cells I just lost?!"

The relieved smile Houki'd been wearing suddenly disappeared. She scowled as she yelled, "That was _pitiful_, Sten! You still haven't mastered a single thi- wah! Hey!"

The Japanese girl was cut off as Cecilia bumped past her right shoulder and jumped over the lip of the newly-formed crater. She slid down the side and immediately ran to me. She bent at the hip to bring herself to my level as she asked, in a bit of a panic, "Goodness! Are you alright, Sten, dear? Have you been injured?"

"Uh, no. I'm totally okay," I said, "Wait, 'Sten, _dear_?!'"

Cecilia's face reddened and she smiled widely. "Well, I'm certainly glad to hear you say that. Although, I do think it would be best for you to get checked out thoroughly at the Nurse's office. If fact, I'll escort you there myself!"

"Not necessary," Houki said, standing beside the bent over Cecilia, "It's impossible for anyone to get injured while piloting an IS."

"Oh, Miss Shinonono," Cecilia stood up, leaving me lying on the ground with a girl standing on either side, "Please understand, it's only natural for me to care about others."

"Oh yeah, because your bosom overflows with human kindness."

"Yes, it does! And it's so much more pleasant than scowling like a troll."

Houki growled and Cecilia copied her. Their heads may as well have been butting together as their eyes burned with hatred.

Exactly when did those two start hating each other so much?

Houki and Cecilia both then turned to me and yelled, "WHO'S RIGHT?!"

"Uh-uh, _no_ way! I'm not taking sides in this!"

The both groaned in annoyance, grabbed one of my arms and yanked me to my feet as they walked back up the side of the crater. "Umm, can you let go of me?"

They both pinched me in the sides. "YIIIAH!" I screamed in pain.

The pair of demons kept walking. I rolled my eyes.

And so it was that practical training became quite impractical, what with the girls I had latched to either arm.

- IS -

Houki and I got back to the room around 6:54, which was surprisingly early for a day of practicals. Sometimes Chifuyu would keep us until 9:00. My bed was made, as it always mysteriously was every evening (we have no cleaning service and I only made my bed once a week), and there was a package on top.

Houki dropped her bag and entered the washroom as I walked over to pick it up. "Hey, Houki? Did you order something?"

"No. Why?"

I flipped the cardboard box, and sure enough, my name was on the bottom, with the words 'special order' underneath.

"I thought this package might be for you. I was wrong."

She came out of the washroom with her hair untied from its usual ponytail and stood beside me. "What's in it?" she asked.

I shrugged and said, "Only one way to find out."

I put the package down on the desk and grabbed a knife from the kitchenette. Houki stayed right beside me as I split the tape binding the box and opened the flaps.

"Aw, crap...," I muttered.

"Well, I didn't expect _that_," Houki said.

Inside was an ISA uniform. Only with pants.

The jacket was slightly shorter at the bottom than the female version was, and the red stripes there were gone. I liked the collar, which was both wide in one direction and tall in another. The pants were a stark white, and, I'll be frank, not very attractive to me.

"It's a bit..."

"White?" Houki asked.

"I was gonna go with gaudy, but sure. White works better."

I tossed the jacket, shirt and pants onto my bed and then saw a pair of black shoes at the bottom of the box.

"_This_ took them a week-and-a-half?" I asked, not very enthused, "I wouldn't be caught _dead_ in this!"

"_Excuse_ me, do you think I _like_ wearing a skirt that's about an inch away from flaunting my ass to the world?"

"Well, actually..."

*Smack!*

I pressed both hands against the back of my head and glared at the brown-haired demon. "Ow! Now _that_ wasn't necessary!"

"Oh really?! You want another?!" Houki growled, her hand moving to the shinai I'd put in the umbrella stand.

"Oh no! It was completely necessary! Please forgive me, Miss Houki!" I cried, shielding my head with my arms.

I develop survival reflexes fast.

She smiled and walked back to the washroom. "I'll think about it, pervert."

The door shut and locked. I collapsed against the foot of my bed.

Yeah, she had me totally whipped.

* * *

Houki and I hung out in the room for a bit after we both showered (yes, separately. Does it _look_ like I want to be castrated?), reading books, before she decided it was time for us to go for dinner. I reluctantly donned my uniform for the first time to find that, to my great surprise, it _extraordinarily_ comfortable. I'd expected the blazer-like jacket to be really stiff, but it like wearing a broken-in one. The dress shirt felt like silk (even though it was probably just polyester, knowing typical manufacturing companies) and I felt like the shoes had been made for me.

...

Well, they had, but still. You know what I mean.

"C'mon, Houki," I said, standing beside the un-Swiss-cheesed door.

She was in the washroom doing whatever with her hair. I thought it looked fine in her signature ponytail, but apparently she was a bit nitpicky. Well, actually, _very_ nitpicky.

"I'm coming," she replied, shortly before she opened the door and exited the bathroom.

Her hair looked the exact same as usual. "What happened to changing it up?"

"I did," she deadpanned.

I squinted and looked at the top of her head closer. I ran a hand down the bound ponytail, which did nothing except make Houki blush and frown a bit.

"It's the exact same."

"No it isn't, Murdoch."

I should probably mention that Houki called me Murdoch when she was angry, which was how I knew whether or not to tone down the snideness. But, this time I could see the corner of her lip twitching, which was a sign that she was trying to hold in a smile _really_ desperately.

'So that's how it is,' I thought.

I shrugged and flippantly left the room. Houki followed behind after she locked the door. Normally nobody bothered, but Houki was apparently paranoid about people getting into her underwear. I suspected she was more afraid that people would steal mine.

Which I didn't have much of to begin with. Or clothes, for that matter. Granted, I was going to be wearing my heavenly and white uniform most of the time, but hey...

"I need to go shopping," I said, half believing that I'd gone senile.

"Why?" Houki asked, sounding confused.

"Consider the fact that most of my stuff is in a stadium back in Canada, Houki. I haven't been home since I left for Vancouver to start school."

"Aren't you annoyed by the fact that the world is treating you more like a commodity than a person?" she asked, quite suddenly.

That was a toughy. I hadn't really thought of it like that, but now that she mentioned it, I had been treated pretty badly. First, they pluck me out of school like a grape, then they keep me in a small room for two weeks, then I'm shipped to Japan in a jet that might as well have said FedEx on the side, and now I was enrolled in a school where everyone looked down on me because I had a penis.

"Now that I think about it, you're right. That does annoy me. No one's been listening to what I want to do."

"You should talk to Miss Orimura about it."

I laughed. "Chifuyu? She'd just whack me with the attendance clipboard."

"She cares about you a lot more than you give her credit for, Sten."

"Are beatings how women show affection nowadays?"

"Hate to break it to you, but it's always been like that."

We kept talking the whole way to the cafeteria, the subject varying from the political stance of the whole world to why carrots are orange. At that time (8:20) it was getting fairly dark. There wasn't a curfew per se, but it was frowned upon to be out past 10:00, generally. That left us an hour-and-a-half for dinner, which I could live with.

I pushed open the double doors to the caf, but...

"Why's it dark in here?" I asked.

No answer.

"Houki?"

Still no answer. Knowing her, she'd probably just walked away and left me.

"It figures."

As I turned to leave, the lights snapped on and about thirty girls, four of whom were holding Houki down and clamping her mouth shut, jumped out of the darkness screaming, "_**CONGRATULATIONS**_!"

"Yah!" I yelped, my foot catching my shin. Needless to say, I fell pretty hard.

Two girls picked me up by the arms, dragged me over to a table alcove and sat me down next to Houki. A gaggle of party poppers went off, raining confetti down on us.

I turned to Houki. "Did someone spread a rumor that we got married?"

A vein pulsed on her forehead and I knew I'd gone too far.

I read the banner over my head, trying to tune out the twenty-seven people talking to me at once.

CLASS REP INAUGURATION

STEN MURDOCH

CONGRATULATIONS!

...

"Wait a sec, how'd I get to be class rep?" I asked, trying to pick Cecilia out of the crowd.

It was only when she spoke that I realized she was sitting right beside me. "Oh, you were promoted because I decided to step down," she said, somehow making that kind sentence sound arrogant, "Obviously, it's true that you did lose that match, but if you think about it, that outcome was inevitable. After all, what else could possibly happen with _me_ as your opponent? Well, I just felt _awful_ for behaving so childishly and getting upset afterward, so, I decided to let _you_ be the class representative!"

Well, so much for the inkling of humility I was starting to think she'd developed.

"Blondie, you won by technicality." I said, totally deadpan.

Completely ignoring me, the redheaded American on the other side of the British girl said, "Wow, that's so considerate of you, Cecilia!"

Another student, couldn't tell where she was from, nodded. "I _totally_ agree! Since he's the only male at the Academy, we have to give him, like, our full support!"

Oh god, please no! I can only take so much female attention at once, and what I'm getting as it is is _frying my freaking brain_!

I cradled my head in my hands and groaned. This school was going to be the death of me.

"Well, aren't you Mister Popularity," Houki said, taking a sip from her juice box. Hey, where'd she get that? I want one now.

"I'm not enjoying this," I replied, pulling on my bangs.

She 'hmphed' and turned away from me.

"And why are you in such a bad mood, anyway?"

A flash came from the end of the table, and I looked over to see a second year holding a Nikon camera, pointing it at us.

Great, now Houki's anger is on immortal film. Just what I needed.

"Hello there!" she said, her voice a little on the nasal side, "I'm from the newspaper club! Oh, right... Um, Cecilia, if you don't mind, would you get into the picture too?"

The blonde girl immediately perked up even more than she already had been. "What? You mean just the two of us?" a sly smile crept across her face.

I don't like this...

"Oh, you and your Personal Units are the center of attention! It'd look even better if the two of you shake hands, or something!"

"Oh, do you really think so?" Cecilia said, blushing, "You _will_ make certain that _I_ receive copies of the pictures as well, won't you?"

"Oh, sure! No problem! Now, come on and stand up." her face disappeared behind the camera.

I stood up beside Cecilia and gave her my right hand, which she grasped eagerly. It wasn't a handshake at all; it was just Cecilia holding my hand! Aha! The caper is capered! Or... however the hell you're supposed to say it!

"Could I get you two to move a bit closer together?"

Oh, no.

Cecilia may as well have been bumping up against me as she stepped forward and held my hand tighter.

"Very good. Now give me a big smile, you two!"

I smiled awkwardly and waited for the flash to go off. The was a great shuffling sound a second before the lens clicked and the flash blinded me, but when I could see again, Houki was between me and Cecilia, who had a look of horror on her face. Pretty much my entire class had piled up around us to get into the photo.

Cecilia's arms shot up in outrage. "_Why_ are all of _you_ in _my_ picture?!"

"Just calm down...," Fox Girl put in.

"We can't let you get ahead of us all by yourself...," Takatsuki said.

Cecilia moaned in annoyance. She was pouting, and looked very disappointed. I just laughed sheepishly and hoped this madness would end soon...

* * *

That night, at the Bat Cave...

We went back to our room hungry. The chefs left before we could get to them, so I'd made Houki pasta when we'd returned

Yes, I can cook. Don't act so surprised.

Anyway, at that exact moment, I was flopped on my bed in my sleepwear (drawstring pants and a shirt) while Houki, still in her uniform, closed the blinds. I let out a sigh and rubbed my eyes with the balls of my palms. It had been a really long day...

"So," Houki said, sounding a bit exasperated, sitting down on the edge of her bed, "I guess that _you_ had a lot of fun today."

I rolled my eyes. "It was exhausting, actually. Do you honestly think you would enjoy it if you were in my shoes?"

"If I had to hazard a guess," she started quietly, before finishing by yelling, "I think I actually would enjoy it!"

*Fooff*

Her pillow hit me in the face. I grabbed it and bolted into a sitting position. "Now what the hell was that for?!"

She seemed entirely unruffled. "I'm going to change into my pajamas now, so I need you to look away."

"I don't understand why you didn't just change when I was brushing my teeth." I rolled onto my side and picked my book up off my night table.

"Hmph!" Houki yanked out the privacy slide between our beds. Seriously? If you're going to do that, why do I have to look away?

I'll never understand this girl...

Course, granted, as I listened to the sound of her taking off her clothes, I was more than a little tempted to look. I held my book in from of my eyes. It was all I could do to keep from looking around the slide.

I'm a hormone driven teenage boy, okay?

So, I bit my lip, closed my eyes and started reciting PI in my head.

3.1415926535897932384626433832 7950288419716939937510582097 4944592307816406286208998628 0348253421170679821480865132 8230664709384460955058223172 5359408128481117450284102701 9385211055596446229489549303 8196442881097566593344612847 5648233786783165271201909145 6485669234603486104543266482 1339360726024914127372458700 660631558817...

The rustling of clothes as they rubbed together and my ever-increasing heartrate were the only things I could hear. Why I was getting like this, I couldn't guess. It wasn't like I hadn't heard Houki getting undressed before.

...4881520920962829254091715364 3678925903600113305305488204 6652138414695194151160943305 7270365759591953092186117381 9326117931051185480744623799 6274956735188575272489122793 8183011949129833673362440656 6430860213949463952247371907 0217986094370277053921717629 3176752384674818467669405132 0005681271452635608277857713 4275778960917363717872146844 0901224953430146549585371050 7922796892589235420199561121 2902196086403441815981362977 4771309960518707211349999998 3729780499510597317328160963 1859502445945534690830264252 2308253344685035261931188171 0100031378387528865875332083 81420617177669147303...

I tried to regulate my breathing a bit. In, out... In, out...

Okay, that helped. I heard the clothes start to come back onto her body and let out another strained breath.

...5982534904287554687311595628 6388235378759375195778185778 0532171226806613001927876611 1959092164201989380952572010 6548586327886593615338182796 8230301952035301852968995773 6225994138912497217752834791 3151557485724245415069595082 9533116861727855889075098381 7546374649393192550604009277 0167113900984882401285836160 3563707660104710181942955596 1989- WHEN DID I LEARN ALL THIS?!

So caught up was I in trying to remember when I'd memorized 1240 freaking decimals of Pi, that when I heard the slide push back into the wall, it didn't really register until Houki said, "Alright, I'm done."

I shook my head to try to make the numbers go away. "Kay."

The uneasiness finally faded.

I sat up. For some reason, Houki slept in a yukata. I don't know, it was probably normal in Japan, but it didn't strike me as very comfortable to sleep in. It looked too hot. It was a light pink, and she usually sported a sash that was a bit darker, but tonight it was a deep burgundy. I'd never seen that one before.

Beyond her outfit, I was always shocked to see how long Houki's hair actually was. In its usual ponytail, it was to her waist, but let down, her hair went past her knees.

"Uh, hey, are you wearing a new sash tonight?" I asked.

She smiled bashfully and blushed, and everything about her countenance softened. Yeah, her tone, too. "Actually, yes, I can't believe you noticed," she said quietly.

"Of course I noticed, Houki. I mean, I look at you all the time!" I said, smiling.

Her face reddened even more. About two whole seconds later, I realized just how strange what I'd said was, but Houki was kind enough to save me.

"Oh yeah, of course you do... I mean, I'm right here and you're there... Haha, it's perfectly normal!"

Everything about that sentence sounded awkward. I could tell she was trying very hard not to turn vermillion.

"Umm, well... Yeah, we should get to sleep now." I said, focusing on her eyes.

"Yeah... bed..." she sounded a bit out of it as she stared at the floor.

We both got into our respective beds and I switched off the lights. I stared at the wall so that I could avoid staring at Houki. I was pretty sure she was doing the same.

The Paxis bracer was very annoying when I slept, mostly because I kept whacking myself in the face with it. I closed my eyes and relaxed.

"Um... Sten?" Houki said quietly. I almost turned over, but... Well, it felt a bit wrong.

"Uh huh?" I replied a little sleepily.

"I just... Well, I... I'm sorry. I was just frustrated...," Houki said, quietly.

It wasn't every day that I got an apology from Houki Shinonono. "That's alright. Don't worry about it, 'kay?"

"Oh, good. That's nice to know. Umm, goodnight, then."

"You too, babe. Sleep easy."

For once, she didn't complain about my endearment for her. That made me smile.

"Night...," I muttered quietly.

- IS -

Morning was easy to get past the next day. I had a light breakfast that would probably have generated leftovers, were I a group of ten people. Houki was calm and friendly. Dare I say, quite amiable, actually. She and I actually had a conversation about fish in which she didn't even have to hit me once.

When things started to go wrong, I was sitting at my desk with a crowd of girls around me. Just to clear things up, things didn't go wrong because of that.

"Hey, Murdoch! The Class League Tournament is coming up soon!" said a girl named Petunia. Seriously, who names their child Petunia in this day and age?

"Oh," the American redhead said. I really needed to find out what her name was, "Oh, that's right! Have you heard that the representative for Class 1-2 has been changed?"

Why the hell would they change their representative? They would only do that if there was a fight, and I'd have heard if there was a fight.

"Yeah, now it's that new transfer student, What's-her-face."

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "A transfer student? At this time of the year?"

Takatsuki sat on the edge of my desk and smirked. I noted that she showed off quite a bit more of her slim thighs than she had to. "You're one to talk, Murdoch."

"Point taken. Nice thighs, by the way," I said. She smiled proudly, and we bumped fists, "But in all seriousness, is there actually a new transfer student?"

"Yeah!" redhead nodded. "Supposedly, she's from China."

China... Hmm...

Cecilia crossed her arms and smirked haughtily. "I wonder if she transferred to the IS Academy to study _my_ techniques!"

"Cecilia," I said, "Much as I love you, your ego is driving me nuts."

She blushed and shut up (thank god...). And so, I returned to the topic at hand...

"Well, I'm sure curious," I said, "I bet she's pretty good!"

"Well, the only classes with a student with a Personal IS are classes one and four, so we'll be fine." Takatsuki said definitely.

"That information is outdated!" someone said from the door.

She was a short Chinese girl, probably the new class rep, with brown hair in two high pigtails and green eyes. Her uniform was really odd, in that the entire thing had been split so that the sleeves were mostly separated, revealing a pair of pale shoulders.

"The representative for Class 1-2 now had a Personal IS as well, so it's not going to be as easy to win anymore!" she continued.

Finally, it dawned on me that I recognized her. "No way," I gasped, standing up. "_Rin_?!"

"That's right! I'm Lingyin Huang, China's Representative Contender, and I've come here to declare war!" she pointed a finger at me dramatically.

I struggled to hold back a fit of giggles and failed spectacularly. I broke into hysterical laughter and doubled over, slamming my hand against my desk repeatedly.

"Exactly _who_ is that new girl? She seems _much_ too friendly with my Sten!" Cecilia said possessively.

"Good one!" I yelled, "Coming in and acting like a showoff! It's so unlike you, Rin!"

"WHAT?! Why would you say something like that about me, huh?!"

She started going on about how I was a jackass, but I wasn't laughing anymore. In fact, I was more than a little scared.

For _her_ life, that is.

Behind my babbling childhood friend, Chifuyu was standing akimbo, glaring a hole in the back of the Chinese girl's head. Of course, Rin just kept flailing her arms and flapping her lips until, finally, the Teacher From Hell smacked Rin over the head with the attendance clipboard.

"OW! That hurt!" Rin whipped around. "What did you do that fo- ...?!"

"Consider that your homeroom bell being rung, moron," Chifuyu said menacingly.

"Chi-Chifuyu?!"

"That's Miss Orimura. Now get back to class; you're in the way."

Chifuyu sauntered over to the lectern and handed the lesson datapad to Miss Yamada, whose nose was buried in an IS textbook.

"Fine!" Rin shouted at me, "But I'll be back later, so don't you run away, Murdoch!"

She then left with her panties in a twist.

Who'd'a thunk it. Lingyin "Rin" Huang, a Representative Contender...

Ever heard the expression, "The shit's gonna hit the fan"?

Let's just hope it's a Dyson fan.

* * *

The first half of class passed with Chifuyu giving an in-depth explanation of why the generation of Unit power was hindered by the use of Shield Regenerators, which ate power like bonbons.

I stared blankly at the chalkboard the whole time, pretending to be listening. Paxis didn't have the ability to regenerate shield energy, so it wasn't something I felt I needed to know.

Every IS has an internal power unit, and the various pieces of equipment are all hooked up to a bus rig. Every model of IS had free bus slots for modification beyond their factory equipment. Modification packages, or Equalizers, provided support for different classes of combat, defence and racing. The weird thing about Paxis was that it didn't have even a single free bus slot.

When Chifuyu finished, Miss Yamada came up to the board, erased everything, and put down the words:

"Pilot"

"Operator"

"Mechanic"

This caught my attention, and I leaned forward a bit, my tablet's stylus in hand. The tables, it turned out, had embedded tablet screens that you could use a stylus to write notes on, which were then transferred to the student's personal datapad. It was incredibly convenient.

Miss Yamada turned back to us. "Some of you already know what these words mean in relation to the IS. For those who don't, I'll explain. This school, while dedicated to training IS pilots, does a lot more than that. We also train operators and mechanics, which are two relatively small parts of the school's population," she said.

I wrote furiously. I was actually following the lesson! Holy crap!

"Mechanics, as the name implies, are the ones who work on the machinery of the IS. They develop new weapons, shields, brainstorm how to increase power efficiency, and maintain a pilot's IS. A single professional pilot can have up to ten mechanics on their team, but for school tournaments, we limit everyone to having one personal mechanic for the sake of fairness."

Which made sense. Not everyone was friends with someone in the mechanic department. I knew I wasn't.

"On the other hand, operators are the ones who strategize. As per Mondo Grosso rules, a pilot can only have a single operator, but that's usually more than enough. An operator feeds information to the pilot during combat. They're the eyes and the ears, you could say."

That sounded familiar. I raised my hand.

"Yes, Murdoch?" she asked pleasantly, smiling.

I lowered my hand and asked, "When I was fighting Cecilia five days ago, were you acting as my operator?"

She walked back to the chalkboard and started writing. "That's right! When a new pilot arrives at the Academy and has to fight before they can choose an operator from the students, their sub-teacher will typically fill in as operator."

"So, it's essentially like a substitute?" Takatsuki asked.

"Exactly!" Yamada cried joyfully, "I filled in as Sten's operator because he was new here, and he didn't know any operators yet!"

I didn't miss that she'd slipped up and called me Sten. Not in a bad way, either. I preferred being called by my first name.

"However, a mechanic squad isn't entirely necessary. An IS pilot is trained to maintain and modify their IS to begin with, so as long as you don't take too many risks, a team can survive with just a pilot and an operator!"

The Fox Girl raised her hand. "Then why do pilots even have mechanics?"

"Well," Yamada started, "That's because sometimes a patch up job may be too complicated for the pilot. Or, and this is the more common case, a pilot is injured and needs to rest while their IS is repaired."

"Oh," was the reply.

"Miss Yamada, is an operator necessary to participate in the Class Tournament?" I asked.

"Good of you to ask, Sten!" there it was again! "The answer is yes! You'll be barred from participating and automatically disqualified if you don't have an operator, so make sure to find someone fast!" she made a thumbs-up gesture that very subtly pointed toward herself. She probably didn't even realize she was doing it, either.

Oh, Yamada...

I chuckled quietly as I opened my 'shit to do' list and put down "find an operator".

Miss Yamada went back to teaching the lesson with a beaming smile on her face, pushing her glasses back up her nose. She had to reach while standing on her toes to write at the top of the board.

Why do I always get stuck with the cute ones?

...

Actually, I have a better question.

Why the hell am I complaining about that?

* * *

Then it was lunch. After we ordered, Rin, Houki and I moved to the pickup line.

"You scared the crap out of me!" I said, "Why didn't you tell me you were transferring in?"

"Don't be stupid!" Rin replied, smiling, "If I'd done that, it would've totally ruined our dramatic reunion!"

"Beyond that, it looks like you've got some problems with Chifuyu. Who would've thought that you knew her brother, What's-his-face."

"His name's Ichika. And I don't have problems with Chifuyu, I'm just not good at _handling_ her."

She turned back to the counter as the lunch lady handed her a bowl. "Here's your ramen!"

I chuckled. "Ramen. You really love your ramen, don't you? It's been, what? _Three years_ since I last saw you, Rin? How the hell have you been?"

She then turned stern. "Look, I've been doing just great. Really! Maybe you're the one who ought to get sick or injured for a change!"

Rin would never stop confusing me. One second she's completely agreeable, the next, she's a bit of a bitch.

We walked over to a free alcove table, coincidentally, the one Houki agreed to teach me at, and sat down with our respective lunches. As we ate and talked, Houki, Cecilia, Fox Girl, Takatsuki, the redhead whose name was actually Lucy and another girl sat down around the table adjacent to ours.

"Man, I really still can't believe you became a Representative Contender," I said, taking a bite of chicken.

"And what about you, huh? I almost had a heart attack when I saw _you_ on the news!" Rin replied. She put down her bowl of ramen.

"You think _you_ were surprised? Hah, well lemme tell you, the _last_ place I thought I'd be going to high school was here. Actually, it didn't even make the list."

"I heard you operated an IS in a compatibility trial, but how can that be possible? Can you really fly an IS, or is this all some sort of Canadian publicity stunt?" she asked skeptically.

I rolled up my right sleeve and held out my armored forearm. "This real enough for you?"

"What's that? A fashion disaster?"

"Ha freakin' ha. This is my IS, Paxis."

Rin's jaw dropped and she started examining my wrist, looking for something to indicate that it was a fake. When she found absolutely zilch, she leaned back and sighed. "I can't believe it. How'd this all happen?"

I rolled down my sleeve and went back to my food. "Well, to be honest, I'm not really sure how it happened. You know that the IS arena in Vancouver is attached to a big high school, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I wish they'd put up a sign, because I wandered in..."

_-The high school's facade was tall and mostly made of glass. I shrugged my backpack further up onto my shoulder and gripped my duffel more tightly. It was now or never. My first course was Phys Ed. I checked my timetable. Room 314 was the classroom I was supposed to meet the teacher in._

_Five minutes later, I was signed in, up the elevator, and totally lost. I was standing at the center of a completely unmarked junction. No one was around. I hated this school already._

_Down a hallway to my left, I saw an unmarked door. I thought I was in the general area of where I was supposed to be, so I approached the door and pushed it open. My surroundings changed from the concrete walls of a school to the metal walls of somewhere much more important. I was about to leave when I noticed something in the center of the room._

_It looked like an old Japanese Samurai, minus most of its body. It was called... Uh, I thought it was called an Uchigane, the Japanese mass-production unit._

_I walked up to it to take a closer look. Ever since I was a kid, I'd always had a fascination with the IS. It sort of broke my heart and crushed my soul when I learned I couldn't fly one._

_No one would mind if I touched it, would they?_

_I quickly cast a glance around the empty room. No one was around. I placed a hand on the Uchigane, if only just to see what an IS felt like._

_But something else happened._

_My hand felt like it burned. Actually, I could see steam and smell burning flesh. I frantically tried to pull away, but the IS wouldn't let me go. The armor opened._

_I called for help over and over, but no one came, and the IS seemed to absorb me. But then, the pain stopped. The burn on my hand disappeared as the gauntlet closed around it. The world seemed to expand before me. My vision was perfect._

_I could feel the tiniest disturbances in the air as I floated up into it._

_My entire body flooded with power as an alarm started to blare. But, no matter how much power I had, I was still terrified beyond words as the door smashed open and a pair of women with guns entered._

_"Land! Now!" one of them yelled, cocking the pistol. I cringed._

_The other one's eyes widened, and her grip on her gun slackened. "Oh my god... Deb, that's a boy!"_

_The other one took a closer look at me and balked. My hair was longer than the average guy kept it, for sure, it being all the way down to my shoulders, but other than that I didn't look anything like a girl._

_"Even if he is a boy, he's not allowed to steal an IS!" the one called Deb shouted._

_I was about to say that I wasn't stealing it when a trail of green lights appeared below me, leading to the now-opening pit doors._

_"I think I should tell you that I'm not flying this thing," I said._

_"I think I should tell you that if you fly an inch toward that door, I'll put a bullet through your skull!"_

_I tried once again to land the Uchigane, but it didn't listen. The pit doors clanked open and the IS jetted toward the opening, bullets piercing the air all around me and bouncing harmlessly off some sort of shield._

_Finally, it stopped. I was hovering about a hundred feet off the ground, opposite three girls in identical units to mine. They took one look at me and balked._

_Every news camera in the arena swivelled to me, and I tried my best not to faint from sheer confusion.-_

"Well, a whole lot of crap happened after that. Next thing I knew, I was here."

At that point, I was done my lunch.

"Huh," Rin said contemplatively, "That _is_ weird."

Suddenly, two pairs of irate hands slammed down on the other end of the table. Unsurprisingly, they belonged to Houki and Cecilia. Also unsurprisingly, they looked _quite_ mad.

"Sten, I think it's about time you gave me an explanation!" Houki snapped.

"That's right!" Cecilia agreed, "You had _better_ explain this! _Don't_ tell me you're actually _dating_ this transfer student now!"

Rin actually looked like she hopped out of her skin. "No! It's not like that at all, I swear!"

"It's true," I supported, "We're just old friends."

Out of the corner of my eye, Rin moved. I turned to see her glaring at me. "What's eating _you_?"

"_Nothing's_ wrong. I'm _fine_!" she growled.

Rin turned away from me with her nose up. She always got like this when she was mad at me. What I didn't get was why it was happening now.

"Wait," Houki interjected, "Old friends?"

"I never told you about Rin?" I asked?

"No! You didn't!" she snapped, "Tell me!"

"Well, I'll tell you as long as you don't beat me with a shinai later."

A vein popped on Houki's forehead and her left eye started twitching. This was the angriest I'd ever seen her. "_FINE_!" she yelled.

I planted my elbows on the table and rested my chin on my knuckles. "Rin used to live in a town that was really close to where I live. Or rather, _used_ to live, what with the whole ISA thing I've got going on. Anyway, Rin moved back to China a few years ago."

I very faintly heard Rin wistfully say, "I'm first? Yesss...!"

"Ah," Houki said, "It's nice to meet one of Sten's _old_ friends."

She said it really rudely, but if there's one thing I'd learned at that point, it was that I had no way of controlling either Cecilia or Houki.

"_Ahem_!" that was Cecilia, "Since you seem to have forgotten about me, allow me to introduce myself!"

I sighed. Just what I needed. A third member added to the pissing contest...

"I am Cecilia Alcott, the United Kingdom's Representative Contender! As a matter of fact, Sten and I had a fierce battle over the title of-"

"So I heard you were recently chosen to be Class 1-1's representative." Rin said. Cecilia of course, being Cecilia, kept talking, too focused on herself to even notice that Rin wasn't listening.

"Yeah, I was." I replied.

My old friend brightened up a bit. "You know, if you want, I could help you with your IS practice drills. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Yeah, for sure! God knows I need all the help I can get."

Finally, Cecilia seemed to notice that no one cared, and scowled. "Look here! Are you listening to me?!" she shouted angrily.

Rin smirked. "Sorry! I'm just not interested!" she said, her voice thick with mock kindness.

Cecilia's face froze. "I can't believe you said that..."

Houki slammed her fists down on the table again. "And in any case, it's _my_ job to teach Sten!" she shouted.

"You're from Class 1-2, aren't you? I'm _not_ looking for any assistance from the enemy!" Cecilia spat.

Rin looked at them both levelly, not losing her cool at all. She was one brave little teenage girl. After all, I was twice her friggin' size and I would have been cowering at this point.

"Look, I'm having a nice chat with Sten right now. We _weren't_ talking to you, so you need to back off!" Rin said.

My classmates growled angrily. Seriously, what are you guys? Wolves?

"Well, _you_ certainly have a lot of nerve! _You're_ the one who entered the picture _after_ we did!" said Cecilia.

"Actually," Rin corrected, "It wasn't _after_ you. I mean, I've known him longer than either of _you_ have."

Couldn't argue with her there.

As the three stared each other down, I noticed a pair of heated glares coming from across the room. I looked over at the source and saw two identical faces staring me back. Steely blue eyes, chestnut tresses...

I recognized them. Just vaguely, but I did.

Olivia and Valerie Murdoch. My older twin sisters.

They stood up and left as soon as they noticed my stare, though, so I went back to Rin, Houki and Cecilia's argument. They'd just gone through some sort of thing about dinners...

"Sten, just _what_ is she talking about, and how come you never mentioned any of this to me?!" Houki shouted from about three inches away.

"You never mentioned it to me, either!" Cecilia put in.

"Never mentioned what?!" I cried, my hands flying up on instinct to protect my face.

Both of them looked totally outraged, but neither tried to hit me. Weird...

"That you consorted with this girl at her own home! What kind of indecencies did you commit?!" Cecilia cried, pinching the bridge of her nose as a vein popped on her forehead.

I really, really, _really_ hoped that question was rhetorical. Not that there was anything to tell, but I'm sure you can get where I'm coming from.

I leaned back in my seat a bit more, trying to put some distance between me and them. "My dad and I used to go eat at a Chinese restaurant her family owned. There a problem with that?"

"Oh, a restaurant," Houki said, relieved, "At least that makes sense..."

"Well, if her family owned a restaurant, I suppose it's only natural you would have eaten there."

Rin looked away a bit.

"So Rin! How's your dad doing?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

I failed miserably, by the way.

"I, uh... I _think_ he's okay." she said, sounding unsure.

That confused me. Rin had always been close with her father when I knew her. For her not to know how he was, something bad must have happened.

The bell rang.

"Alright, I'll see _you_ after school! I'll come by around the time you're finished practicing with them, so make sure you're available, okay?" she said as she picked up her tray and walked off.

I watched her go, before turning back to Cecilia and Houki, who were both glaring at me.

"Uhhh... What's up, guys?" I asked already moving my hands up to shield my head.

""STEEEEEEEEEN!""


	5. Chapter 5

- 5 -

_"A Promise Best Left Forgotten"_

That afternoon, as the sun was midway through setting, I was in arena 3 again. Paxis was deployed and I was running some flight drills.

Fly the length of the arena, followed by an upward corkscrew and a power dive. The trick was keeping the target at the center of the onslaught by continuously striking them with the Yukihira. I called it the gutbender. It was an effective attack strategy, but I just couldn't seem to do it right.

Then Houki arrived, and I landed. She was wearing a necklace I'd never seen her in before.

I greeted her, she greeted me, and she deployed her Uchigane from the necklace.

"What in the devil is going on here, Miss Shinonono?!" Cecilia cried, walking over from the second pit's field entrance, "And how did you-"

"I've been given clearance to use a training IS!" Houki cut her off flatly, "And I'll be using it for Sten's intensive training!"

Cecilia's face furrowed in rage. I really hated it when she got like this. Never ended well.

For me, that is.

"Now, hold on... That's the Japanese production IS! How on Earth could you have possibly gotten clearance to use the Uchigane?!"

"You know, you go through a huge stack of paperwork, then you have to wait to get a unit freed up, then you have to get fitted-"

"Shut up, Sten!" Cecilia screamed, probably not even realizing what she said.

Houki's hand went to the ring that sat at her waist, and she drew a katana from the ensuing flash of light. "Alright, Sten. Let's begin!"

"Gotcha, boss," I drew Yukihira Nigata, but didn't deploy the energy blade yet. The blade itself was self-sustaining, so it supplied its own power, but it took about five percent of Paxis' power to generate it. On the flip side, though, even without the barrier-null attack, the energy blade was sixty percent more effective at disabling a shield.

This weapon gave me a headache sometimes...

Why couldn't Tabane have just given me a machine gun, or something? No, don't give someone a 'pick up, point and shoot' weapon that anyone can learn to use in five seconds. Give him a weapon that some people take a lifetime to learn how to use effectively! Who the hell has that kind of thought process?!

It then occured to me that it _was_ Tabane Shinonono I was talking about..

"You wait _just_ one minute!" Cecilia screamed indignantly, "_I'm_ the one who's supposed to be conducting Sten's training, do you hear me?!" Blue Tears materialized.

I had a feeling this was about to get veeeeeery ugly.

"Concentrate, Sten," Houki said, "We'll start your lesson now!"

"No! Let me start your lesson, Sten!" Cecilia's Starlight Mk III sniper rifle appeared.

I laughed sheepishly while Houki and Cecilia growled menacingly at each other. Their grips on their respective weapons tightened, and I cringed as I realized something. When Houki and Cecilia were angry at each other, they typically worked together to hit the closest thing to them really, really hard.

Unfortunately, that happened to be me in this case.

"I swear, if one of you attacks me, you're gonna take the Yukihira to the face later."

Cecilia sprang upward, Starlight Mk III alight as Houki charged in with her katana. I sidestepped Cecilia's first shot and parried Houki's blow before launching into the air. I flew as fast as I could away from the site, but they followed me. I rolled side to side, narrowly avoiding the expert shot as Houki struggled to catch up and land a strike on me.

"What the hell is wrong with you two tonight?!"

"Stop dodging so I can shoot you!"

"Slow down so I can hack you to bits!"

I rolled my eyes and decided I would do exactly what they wanted. I came around in an Immelmann Maneuver and engaged Yukihira Nigata's energy blade, immediately striking at Houki and rolling again to ablate a shot from Cecilia.

I needed to create distance to escape Houki, but CQC was my only hope against Cecilia. I found myself at an impass as I felt a volley of blue energy bolts strike my shield.

_SHIELD ENERGY: 536/600_

"Crap," I muttered angrily, "This _seriously_ sucks!"

At that point, we were pretty high up. About a half a kilometer, if my Hyper Sensors were working properly.

Smiling, I gave a whoop of euphoria and dove straight for the ground. Foolishly, Cecilia and Houki followed. The web of bolts Cecilia's now-deployed BITs were firing straight into my path forced me to improvise a bit.

I was too far from the arena for a gutbender, and beyond that, I still couldn't pull it off, so that was out of the question... An idea suddenly popped into my head.

Flaps deployed around my body as I braked. Hard. So hard, in fact, that I got the wind knocked out of me as Houki unexpectedly slammed into me. Not part of the idea, but I could roll with it. Cecilia had already passed me, and was having trouble stopping her rage-fuelled descent.

I kicked Houki off and slashed with the barrier-null, but she dodged just as fast, coming up behind me again and striking my shield for a good thirty-seven energy units.

_SHIELD ENERGY: 499/600_

"That was a dirty move, Sten!" she cried, backhanding me across the face with her steel-clad fist. Granted, my shield protected me from any serious injury, but I still felt the impact, and it sent me spinning.

"OW!"

WARNING! INCOMING ENERGY PROJECTILES!

The warning came a second too late. I only managed to dodge about half of the dozen shots Cecilia and her BITs sent at me, and the rest pounded the crap out of me. My shield, at this point, was actually flickering in and out of sight as I dove upward and kept rolling.

* * *

The sun had set an hour ago when Cecilia shot me down.

No, I mean she _actually_ shot me down. My right wing was about a hundred feet away, a pitted crater at the center from the shot the followed after Houki mercilessly shattered my shield. I was lucky the bolt hadn't gone through my head.

I'd have to tell Miss Yamada about the damage later, because flying with one wing really wasn't a very good idea, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I was lying at the center of the arena in the small crater I'd created when my one-winged form had hit the ground at two-hundred KPH. Panting hard, I cracked an eyelid to see Houki and Cecilia standing over me, looking at me like I was something to pity.

"Don't you give me those looks," I said breathlessly.

"Well," Cecilia said, "I _suppose_ we can call it a day now, can't we?"

I grunted in agreement and kept panting, trying very hard to catch my breath.

"You feel that was because you haven't kept up your training," Houki said irritatedly.

"Oh, please! I train more than the two of you combined!"

Houki huffed and shut up. Thank god...

Cecilia then turned to go. "Well, Sten, I'll see you later, then!" the British aristocrat said cheerily, sauntering away.

Houki looked at me incredulously. "What are you still doing down there? We should head back to our room now," she said.

"Yeah... You go on ahead. I can't move my legs..."

She smiled. "What am I gonna do about you? Alright, I'll go ahead and use the shower first."

"Yeah, fine..."

Houki left too. I waited for blood to start pumping back into my legs as I looked up into the starry sky. It was really clear and pretty. Laurentian was a very eco-friendly place, so it was common to have really clear skies at night.

I grunted and picked myself up before heading for the boys' (my) locker room. I unlocked my locker and sat down on the bench between rows.

"Oh, man... Is it gonna be this bad right up 'till the class league match?" I muttered, wiping sweat off my face with a towel.

It was constantly too much to handle, this training. Cecilia trained me like I had a University level education, and Houki made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"Hey! Good work out there, Sten!" I turned to the sound of the jovial voice to see Rin walking over to me with another towel and a bottle. "You could probably go for some water, right? Here!"

I took the bottle from her and set it down beside me. "Thanks, Rin. Have you actually been waiting here this whole time?"

The Chinese girl giggled, before answering, "You could say that."

She seemed really cheerful. So...

Why did I feel _terrified_?

She sat down beside me as I took a swig of the cool water. I put the bottle down and yanked off the shoes of my IS suit.

"So... we're finally alone together..."

Oh crap.

My back stiffened a bit as I turned to face her again. "I... Uh, I suppose?"

She was staring seriously at her feet, her eyebrows furrowed in what seemed like concentration. She squeezed the towel in her hands tightly. "Sten, I was wondering if you missed me after I moved."

"Well, I suppose not having a reason to get out of chopping firewood did make me feel a bit lonely."

Her head whipped around. "That's not what I meant," she insisted, "I'm a childhood friend you haven't seen in a long time, and I _know_ you've got something to say to me!"

I sighed. "Don't be ridiculous, Rin. _Of course_ I missed you! It was sorta annoying only having Nate to talk to. You know how he can be," I wiped away some of the sweat that was starting to reform, "As for the thing I need to tell you, is it about your PS5? 'Cause I sorta thought that was a gift!"

She blushed horrendously. "That's not it! I-"

"Listen, I need to get back to the Bat Cave, okay? I feel sorta gross, and hopefully, Houki's done with our shower by now," I got up and grabbed my uniform from my locker, slinging it over my shoulder.

"Shower?" Rin muttered in confusion.

I turned to go, but she shot up off the bench and darted in front of me. "And Houki's that girl I met earlier? What kind of relationship do you two have?!"

"Well, I'm her sister's ward right now, and other than that, we're just friends," I said, a bit befuddled.

"But what's does _that_ have to do with taking a shower?!"

I then realized what she was asking. "Ohhhhh, _that_. Houki and I are living together right now, and she loves her sho-"

"WHAAAAAT?!" Rin's face contorted in annoyance, rapidly cycling through fifty shades of gray- no, green- black- _red_!

God, I'm tired...

"Well, yeah. They couldn't give me my own room, so-"

"So what you're saying is that you and this _Houki_ person are living together?!"

Was she ever going to let me finish a sentence again? The prospect looked bleak.

"Yeah. Thanks goodness it was Houki, though. If it were with someone I _didn't_ know it'd be pretty awkward almost all the time."

Rin's gaze dropped and she frowned. "Euhhhhh..."

"Huh? Hey, what's wrong?"

"It's okay because you know her...," she muttered.

"Huh?"

"What I _said_ was that you don't mind because you know her!"

No good could come of this. Nope, none at all...

* * *

Rin practically dragged me back to the room. She seemed quite peeved at me, but, for the life of me, I couldn't understand why! Houki was sitting on her bed in her yukata when Rin kicked the door down (if we went through many more doors, the ISA administration probably wouldn't bother putting up another) and started babbling about what good friends she and I were three years ago.

I gradually moved to stand beside Houki, which I'm pretty sure neither of them registered. Surprisingly, Houki was staying pretty calm about the whole thing. Then, Rin came out and said something that may as well have been the _Enola Gay_ dropping the atomic bomb.

"And that is why," the Chinese girl clapped her hands together, "We need to switch rooms!"

Of course, Houki reacted badly to this.

"Is your brain not functioning?! Why switch with me?!" the sword-wielding girl replied. Apparently she had no concept of how valuable the commodity that she had a monopoly on was.

The commodity being me, of course.

"Well, I figured it must be _horrible_ for you to have to share a room with a guy!" Rin said.

"But I never said that sharing with him was horrible. Besides, the issue is between me and Sten, got it?"

"Oh, don't worry! After all, I'm his best friend, right?" she looked over Houki's shoulder at me expectantly.

"You're not getting me involved in this argument!" I said flatly, wanting no part in Rin's bullshit. Harsh way of saying it, but ever-so-true.

Houki subtly nudged me with her elbow, before returning her angry glare to Rin. "In any case, I will _not_ switch rooms with you! Now go back to your own room!" Houki pointed to the doorway. The door was busy being a doormat at that moment, so there were, no doubt, spectators all around the doorway, trying to stay out of sight.

Then, Rin pulled a card I really thought she was above. "Oh, by the way Sten! Do you still remember our promise?"

"Huh? Promise?" I asked.

"Mm-hm! From the Drop?"

The Drop was a big cliff that went down into the ocean near where I lived in BC. Rin, Nate and I used to go there to swim a lot.

But the promise...

...

Oh, that one.

"Stop ignoring me, you trollop!" Houki yelled angrily, "Okay, it's come to this."

She darted over to the umbrella stand and yanked her shinai out. She spun around to strike Rin. "Houki, stop!" I shouted, but it was too late to stop her.

There was a brilliant flash of light, and Houki's shinai hit metal. Rin was standing with her arm outstretched, the shinai caught in her hand. What shocked me about it was that the pink gauntlet of an IS was on her arm. But the rest of the machine wasn't materialized.

"A full Partial Deployment...," I muttered, extremely impressed. A Partial Deployment was really hard to pull off.

"You know, a normal person would have been seriously injured by that!" Rin snapped, more than a little peeved.

Houki backed off, ashamed of herself for losing control like she had. Rin's IS armor disappeared.

"So, Sten, do you remember the promise we made?" Rin asked expectantly.

Of course I remembered.

_"Sten, if I become a better cook, will you eat my sweet and sour pork every day?"_

_"I promise, Rin."_

The deeper meaning behind that promise being that I'd be with her every day as her boyfriend. I'd understood what she was implying at the time, but I didn't truly understand what it meant.

I liked Rin. I liked her a lot. That didn't change the fact that I really wasn't interested in her romantically anymore. I had a feeling it would be more damaging to say that than to just say, "No."

Rin's smile froze and shattered. "What?"

"I really don't remember what promise you're talking ab-"

_*Slap!*_

The sound of her hand slapping me echoed what seemed like a thousand times in my mind. My head went spinning sideways.

"What a jerk!" she cried, tears in her eyes.

I just shut my eyes and took it.

"How can you not remember a secret promise you made to a girl?! You're the most despicable guy ever! I hope a dog bites you to death!" she screamed.

Rin was sensitive. I'd known that, but I guess I'd forgotten just how sensitive she was.

"How about this, then?! In next week's class league match, if you win, I'll tell you what the promise was! If I win, you'll be my _slave_! What do you say?!"

"Fine by me, Rin," I said. To be perfectly honest, being a slave didn't really appeal to me, and I already knew what the promise was. But, I had to temper her wrath somehow, and this seemed like the best way to do it.

Rin stalked off toward the door. "You had _better_ be ready for it, you understand?!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Rin left the room.

I sighed and sat down on the end of Houki's bed. It had been a long day...

"Sten?"

"Yeah, Houki?"

"I hope a horse kicks you to death!"

Are things _ever_ going to get easier for me?

* * *

That night, after Houki's lights out, I wrote to my dad. I don't know why I didn't do it before, but I figured I should. We didn't have internet, and our phone wasn't international, so I wrote him a letter detailing my high school experience so far. I told him about Houki and Cecilia.

He'd probably get a kick out of how whipped I was.

I mentioned Rin, but I tried really hard not to linger on the subject for too long.

I looked over to Houki's bed. She was sleeping soundly, her hands bunched up against her lips and her body curled into a ball. It was incredibly cute, which was something I only saw extremely rarely from my Samurai-like roommate.

I turned back to the desk and the dimmed lamp I was writing under. I finished up my letter and sealed it in the white envelope beside me. I missed my dad a lot. Writing to him provided relief for some of the anxiety I felt from being away from home, but it was still there, no matter how cool I acted.

I flicked off the lamp and got back into bed. For what seemed like hours, I just stared at the ceiling and tried to think about how I was going to deal with Rin. She was a Representative Contender, one of a handful of people under consideration to be China's National Representative in the next Mondo Grosso. If she was that good, then I seriously doubted that Houki could help me much.

Cecilia was too straight-laced to come up with a strategy other than the one she always used, which limited how much she could help a pilot who didn't use BITs, which had been created for the still-in-development 3rd generation IS units. Essentially, mentally controlled components. In that sense, I guess Paxis must've been a 3rd generation IS, what with the free-floating wings.

If those two were out, and Rin would stab me if I asked her for help, there was really only one person to ask. Someone who knew the territories of National Representatives.

The trick was asking without getting whacked with a steel attendance clipboard...

- IS -

"Murdoch!"

I turned in the hallway outside the gym to see Miss Yamada running toward me with a stack of papers and books in her hands.

"Afternoon, Miss Yamada!" I greeted cheerily.

Two days had passed since I'd sent my letter, and I was still on edge. Chifuyu was MIA for some reason, Houki was mad at me (then again, she always was), and Rin was doing everything she could to publicly show me how strong she was.

I noticed that one of Yamada's boots was loose about a second before she tripped over it and went flying.

"Waaaaaah!" she cried, her arms flailing.

Thankfully, I was quick enough to dart over and catch her before she did a boobplant (sorta like a faceplant, but with your b- you know what, I'm sure you can figure it out). After all, it'd be awfully hard to hit the ground face-first with _those_ in the way.

Unfortunately, what she was carrying was scattered all over the floor.

"You okay?" I asked.

I finally really noticed just quite how small she was, now that I was holding her and all that. She was _maybe_ 4' 11", and her clothes were a lot looser than I originally thought. But, despite all that, she still had a nice body, her chest aside.

Well, this is a charming line of conversation.

It took her a moment before she realized that I was holding her and blushed furiously. "U-uh-m-mm... Y-yea-h!" she stuttered.

I smirked and helped her back to her feet. "Here, let me get the stuff you dropped, Miss Yamada."

"Oh, um- thanks!" she squeezed her hands together and tried her best to hide her face behind her shoulder.

I collected the papers, which I noticed were our last test scores, and the three textbooks she was carrying. All of them were third year books.

I put them on the ground and reached over to her leg. She yelped and jumped in fright.

"Hey, calm down," I said, smiling, "I'm just fixing your boot."

She tentatively returned the boot to within arm's reach. I put my left hand against her foot and ran it up the side of her leg to get the boot straight, before zipping it up with my right hand. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were quite crimson, which, beyond making me blush a little as I picked her stuff up again, made me chuckle.

"What is it you needed to talk to me about?" I asked, deciding to carry the stuff for her. She didn't answer, and just kept staring at me like I she'd never met me before. "If you want to carry your stuff..."

"Oh, what?" she finally came back to herself and blinked around in mild confusion.

"You wanted to speak to me?"

"Huh?" I mentally slapped myself, but she shook her head, fixed her glasses and finally remembered what her intercepting me was about. "Oh, right! The repairs to your IS are finished, so come see me later and I'll have it for you!"

She brightened up. "Thanks," I said, "You're headed to the staff room?"

"Uh, yeah..."

"Think you could do with some company?"

The redness returned. Jesus, it was easy to get her worked up. "S-sure!" she answered, way over-enthusiastically.

So, we set off for the staff room, which was two floors up, on the other side of the school building.

I tried to start a conversation, but I couldn't find anything quite good enough to say.

The class league tournament somehow found its way into my head at that moment. I still needed an operator, but I didn't know who the hell _was_ an operator! If I didn't hurry up and find one, I'd have to forfeit and Rin would have me doing all sorts of degrading stuff for who knew how long.

I glanced at Yamada. During my fight with Cecilia, she'd been a spectacular operator, getting me the Blue Tears data, and maintaining Paxis' energy levels as well as anyone could. The thing was a freaking gas guzzler.

"Miss Yamada?"

"Yes, Murdoch?"

I was fully prepared for her to say no, but I asked anyway. "Would you be willing to be my operator?"

Her jaw stiffened.

"I mean, if you don't want to, that's fine. It's just that you were really good during my fight against Cecilia," I said, silently adding that I didn't know anyone else.

"OF COURSE!" she cried happily, startling me, "I'D LOVE TO!"

With a response _that_ enthusiastic, she must've meant it.

"Great," I said sheepishly, although quite relieved, "I was really worried you were gonna say no."

"Why would I say no, Murdoch? I am your teacher, after all! I want to support you!" she smiled brightly. I've got to say, in terms of assistant teachers, I definitely got the pick of the lot.

"Though, one thing I think I should get straight is that I'm okay with you calling me Sten, Miss Yamada." we were standing outside the staff room at this point.

"O-okay, then, Sten! Call me M-Maya, then!" she insisted, her blush returning.

I smiled. "Right, then. Maya it is."

I was about to open the door for her when it opened from the inside, and out walked three people I was torn on whether or not I wanted to see.

The first was my mother. She was a tall woman. Almost as tall as me when she had her heels on. Her blue eyes looked at me poisonously.

Behind her were Olivia and Valerie. They were dressed identically, so the only way to tell them apart was by the little black spot they had under one of their eyes. Olivia's was under the left eye, Valerie's under the right. They were both almost as tall as Houki.

What shocked me was that they didn't look at me with hostility. More like confusion. Like, 'how can this guy be my little brother?'.

"Afternoon, Miss Yamada," mom said.

My sisters each bowed their head in reverence to my teacher. Now I just felt like I had poor manners.

"Miss Murdochs," Yamad- _Maya_ (this is going to take some getting used to) greeted pleasantly, "Where are you three off to?"

"We _were_ going to run some practicals with Miss Sarashiki, but now that I think about it, I think he and I should have a talk," she pointed at me.

Maybe she wanted to make peace? Yeah, right. That's about as likely as Houki prancing around the island buck naked, screaming, "I BELIEVE IN POLYGAMY!"

I'd pay to see that, actually.

"Uh, okay," I said, confused, "Just let me set this stuff down inside and I'll be right with you."

I let Maya go in first. As soon as I was inside, and out of sight of that harpy I turned to Maya. "How long has she been teaching here?" I asked.

The green-haired woman looked up from her desk across the room and said, "Hm? Oh, Miss Murdoch's been working here for... Hmm... What's it been, seven months since she and Miss Orimura got back from Germany? Her daughters have been coming here all three years, though."

Which made me the odd one out. "Wait, what the hell was Chifuyu doing in Germany, of all places?"

Maya shrugged. "You'd have to ask her."

I buttoned down my questions and filed them away in my shit-for-brains brain. I told Maya to meet me outside the third arena that night so that I could get my IS back and she could get a better handle on my fighting style.

Not having Paxis on my arm made me feel a bit naked, after a few weeks of its constant presence.

I waved goodbye and stepped back into the hall. "So, what's this all about?" I asked.

Mom turned away wordlessly. "Walk with us, Murdoch."

Olivia and Valerie started walking, each half a pace behind her on either side. I was stunned. Last time I'd seen my sisters they were bigger trouble makers than I was. So, why did they now look like they'd just walked out of the Obedient Child Catalogue?

Then again, ten years was a long time, and people change with time.

God, now I sound like an old man.

They led me a couple hallways over, to an empty third year classroom. May I please say that what I say next is totally justified.

I HATE THE THIRD YEARS!

While I had a desk that reflected the sun up into my eyes all day, they were on the shady side of the school. Not only that, but the classroom was essentially a hangar. Uchiganes and green IS that I didn't know the names of lined the walls, and the outer wall was a gigantic door.

Not to mention that they had a fishtank.

Mom settled herself sitting on the desk, and the twins each stood on either side. I leaned against a support beam from one of the IS alcoves and waited for the insults to start flying.

"I'm going to be blunt," mom said, "I want you to leave this school. Immediately."

"I guessed that much. Any particular reason?" I blew a lock of hair out of my eye and shot her a level stare. I wasn't going to let her provoke me.

"Yes, actually. You're disturbing the life that we've made for ourselves, and your presence makes my daughters uncomfortable," She somehow managed to make it sound like I'd come to school to stalk them.

"First of all," I frowned and put my hands in my pockets, "I didn't exactly come to this school intentionally. I was sort of forced. And, second of all, I'd like to hear that from them."

I looked expectantly at Olivia, who was staring levelly at her feet, her head bowed. She and Valerie both raised their eyes when mom gestured to, and I tried to get a read on them.

"So, how do you guys feel about me?" I asked.

Valerie opened her mouth to speak but closed it just as fast. Olivia was a bit more daring.

"I don't really mind-" she started. Mom fixed her with a commanding glare and she closed her eyes in apology. She finished, "I don't really think that you should be here."

I laughed and clapped a bit, more than a little appalled. "Well, you're a gigantic bitch," I said to my aptly addressed mother

"You insolent little-"

"Ah ah ah! Not done!" I stood a few feet in front of her. "Who the _hell_ do you think you are? I asked them what they thought and you _intimidate_ them into agreeing with you? _Seriously_?!"

My sisters ground their teeth together as my mother's anger clearly flew through the roof. She had possibly the worst temper of anyone I had ever seen.

She slammed a fist down on the desk and fixed me with a look of total miffedness. "YOU WILL LEAVE THIS SCHOOL AND NEVER EVEN THINK OF RETURNING!" She roared.

I walked to the door and looked back for a second.

"No, but, you know what I _will_ do?"

I yanked down my pants and gave her an eyeful of my ass.

* * *

That night, I walked back to arena three in my IS suit, fully prepped to run some practicals with Maya.

The thing was starting to become sort of like my second skin, I found myself wearing it so much. It was sweat resistant, so it was comfortable in that sense, but it still hurt to run without my IS deployed.

I stood in the center of the arena and waited. And waited. And waited.

An hour past our designated meeting time, I figured she must have forgotten, which shouldn't have surprised me, in all honesty. I sighed in exasperation, and was about to leave when the second pit's field entrance whirred open and a figure in a track suit entered, shinai in one hand and Paxis in the other.

It was Chifuyu.

"Murdoch, Miss Yamada isn't going to be coming tonight. I caught her when she was on her way over and told her I'd handle you. You'll run your drills with her tomorrow night," she said, tossing me the bracer.

"...When was this?" I asked, slipping it on. As I clipped the bottom shut, the seam glowed white and disappeared, leaving no evidence that it was even removable.

"About an hour ago."

"THEN WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!" was what I _wanted_ to say, but it came out more like, "Lovely. Can we get started?"

I threw my fist in the air and deployed my white and blue IS.

"Bring out the Yukihira's energy blade," Chifuyu ordered.

I slammed the top of my right fist into my open left palm and drew the Yukihira Nigata out of my hand. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. Swinging the metal blade to the side, I collapsed it in on itself and willed the swirling blade of blue energy to coalesce.

I weighed it in my hand. "So, is the Yukihira Nigata the only weapon the Paxis has?"

"And I won the championship with just that," she said. She swung the shinai to point at me. "Just one strike is good enough to win!"

"Why am I being compared to a world champion, exactly?"

"If you want to be realistic, an amateur like you has no chance of winning a shooting battle! Do you know _anything_ about recoil control? How to distance yourself from the bullet line? One-Zero Stops? Absolute turns? What about ammo characteristics? Atmospheric conditions? Or the intellectual aspects of battle, such as the influence caused by the opponent's equipment? And that's only the beginning, so can you handle all that? Well, can you?!" she slammed the shinai against the ground.

I hung my head in defeat. "Fine..."

Chifuyu's face softened a bit, and she smiled. "Look, I know you pretty well at this point, and mastering one technique is really more your style," she said, "Tabane isn't a stupid person, as you well know. She gave you my weapon for a reason, Murdoch. It's quick and powerful, but difficult to use effectively. I know how, and I can teach you. All you have to be willing to do is be patient, because it isn't easy."

I nodded and gripped Yukihira with both hands. "I'm ready. Just tell me what to do, boss."

She smirked. "Good. Now, fly!

- IS -

Five days passed quickly. Chifuyu taught me so much about my IS that I was a bit flabbergasted. Tabane must've been tutoring _her _on it, because she told me about some pretty obscure stuff.

I was back in arena three, pit one, waiting for Maya to tell me to take off. The reason I was so ready to go? Just take a look at the notification board.

IS ACADEMY CLASS LEAGUE TOURNAMENT

FIRST ROUND MATCHUPS

I

—

I I

STEN MURDOCH LINGYIN HUANG

Oh, yeah. First freaking match. Ass kicking time.

Houki and Cecilia were with me, whispering (yelling) sweet nothings (IS facts) to me like it would kill them to stop.

A screen popped up in front of me as I stood on the launch plate. It displayed a very ungainly looking IS, with V-shaped feet that stretched backward almost two feet. It had wingpods, just like Paxis used to, albeit her's were extremely bulbous. It was also, if Rin's Partial Deployment last week was to be an example, hot pink.

Really, Rin?

"Her IS is called Shenlong. This model is a Close-Quarters Combat (CQC) type, just like your Paxis," Maya said over the IS Core network, on a channel. I could talk by thinking toward the back right side of my mind.

"Thanks, Maya."

"This match is not going to be the same as the one between you and me," Cecilia said, "So please don't let your guard down."

"Wasn't planning on it, Blondie."

"Don't get too stressed out," Houki added, "You can win as long as you fight like you would during practice."

I ran my eyes over the image of Rin out on the field and groaned. "Looks like getting hit by that would be pretty painful."

A voice rang out over the loudspeaker. "Both contestants are to move to their designated positions at this time."

I hunched my back and braced myself to get hurled out into the arena.

"Sten, deploy!" Maya yelled.

The launch plate jolted forward, and the track glowed green. I threw back my mental accelerator and flew out of the pit, spinning to a stop as I reached my marker. Rin was hovering about two hundred feet away. "If you apologize now, I'll reduce the amount of pain you're about to endure!" she yelled. Of course, we were talking over the IS channel, so all she did was hurt my ears.

Then again, she probably knew that.

"I don't need any favors!" I said indignantly, "Come at me with all you've got!"

"Fine, but for your information, the absolute defence isn't so perfect. If your attack is powerful enough to rip through the shield, it's possible to injure your opponent severely, but _not_ kill them."

"I'll try not to mess up your face _too_ much!"

"Both contestants, you may commence the match at this time," said the announcer.

Rin drew a scimitar-like sword from her back and put herself in a ready stance.

I deployed Yukihira's blade and charged.

The Chinese girl smirked and dodged upward, laughing a bit as I flew through right where she'd been. I did an aerial somersault and used my momentum to fly straight back at her, but she brought the scimitar down at me.

I raised Yukihira to parry, but the blades caught onto each other. She kicked me in the gut and distanced herself. "Not bad," she said, "You actually managed to block my first attack!"

"Wasn't too hard! You move like molasses, Rin!" I taunted, twirling Yukihira in my hand.

She ground her teeth together in anger and materialized a second scimitar in her left hand. The incredible unfairness of it was astounding.

The two blades spun like fans on her hands before she came at me like a freaking crazy person. I blocked her strike, but she slashed at my waist with the other blade. I shoved the first away and blocked the second. The crowd cheered loudly as I disengaged and zipped behind her, stabbing at her wingpod.

"You should be using the cross-grid turn I taught you!" Cecilia yelled over the channel, "Have you forgotten how to do it?!"

"I'm a little busy here, Blondie!" I snapped.

I leaned back under a pair of slashes and brought myself into a backward somersault to kick Rin in the face. She backed off, looped around, and kept coming. She was like a wild bull, if you looked at her.

She stopped and slammed the pommels of her scimitars together. "Sten," Maya said, "Watch out for that thing! It's called Souten Gagetsu, and it has a good shield pierce rate!"

"You don't need to tell me to stay away from the bigass sword, Maya!"

I jetted up over Rin's lunge and flew down again as she put the Souten Gagetsu right through where my head would've been. I was starting to see why everyone found her so intimidating.

Without an IS, Rin was a short little ball of attitude.

_With_ an IS, Rin was undeniably deadly.

At that rate, I realized the match was going to be really gruelling. Neither of us had lost any shield points. She'd probably tire me out before the fight was through if I didn't distance myself.

I continued the aerial chase for a bit, and when we were going straight up, I completely reversed, going straight back down for the ground. I shot past Rin and heard her laugh haughtily.

"So naïve!" she cried.

Her 'wingpods' popped open and glowed orange moments before an invisible force hit me with the force of a ballistic missile.

I cried out in pain and crashed into the ground.

* * *

"What the hell of a kind of attack did she use?!" Houki cried as Sten struggled to stand, using the Yukihira as a support.

Miss Yamada turned in her seat. "What she used was a Ryuhou shock cannon. It's a weapon that manipulates barometric pressure in an isolated area to apply massive amounts of kinetic force to a target."

"Oh, that's right," Cecilia said, "The Shenlong is a 3rd Generation model, like my Blue Tears..."

Through all this, Chifuyu just stared at a screen that showed her protégé's struggle to rise to his feet. _'You can do it, Sten...'_

* * *

I managed to stand up after a couple seconds. I could feel my legs trembling in Paxis' armor. Whatever the hell she hit me with, it really freaking hurt. I looked up just in time to see the weapon pods glow again, and the air pressure spiked. I rolled aside just as the ground exploded to my left and started running away. Shock blasts hit a split second after my feet left the ground

I stopped when one hit the ground in front of me and glared up at Rin, who was hovering on the other side of the arena.

"You're dodging pretty well!" she said, "I thought Ryuhou's invisible barrel and ammunition would give me a decisive advantage, however..."

* * *

"There's something else about the shock cannon," Miss Yamada said, "It fires at any angle, unlimited by its barrel's angle of skew."

Cecilia could feel the cold hand of fear grasp her heart. Sten didn't have the experience to coordinate his own melee assault while under constant long-range attack. "So what you're saying is that it doesn't have a blind spot."

"Yes, I'm afraid that's exactly right," Miss Yamada looked just as concerned as Cecilia felt, and when she looked over at Houki, she could see the Japanese girl's face was plastered into a deep frown of worry.

Once again, Cecilia made a silent wish that her dearest Sten would emerge victorious.

* * *

I skimmed along the ground, snaking left and right as the Ryuhou cannons peppered the arena with small craters.

"Damn it," I cursed aloud, "If I don't make some kind of move, she's gonna win!"

I jumped up and looped around a strut for the retracting roof, watching the cannon bolts batter the arena's impenetrable defence shield.

Rin followed me, striking my shield with the Souten Gagetsu as I barrel-rolled to avoid another volley. Her IS was really starting to get on my nerves...

_'Come on, you're using the Yukihira Nigata! Think of something!'_ I yelled in my mind. I seriously hoped it hadn't been broadcasted.

I'd pulled out all the stops so far. I couldn't get close enough fast enough to use Yukihira without her blocking, and the gutbender had just gotten me slammed into a wall. I was starting to realize that Paxis was really one of the least versatile IS that had probably ever been produced.

Wait... I couldn't get close enough _fast_ enough?!

I smiled as a strategy took shape in my head. I banked below a shot and swung through another. It surprised me when it didn't just ablate, but instead went flying off in another direction altogether.

Rin stopped in shock, and I used the opportunity to take a tense breather. I gripped the Yukihira Nigata's hilt in both hands and got ready to launch myself at her.

"Rin," I yelled.

"Yeah?! What is it?!"

"Be warned: I'm not holding back any more!"

"What's that mean? That's what you're _supposed_ to do! Besides," she twirled Souten Gagetsu menacingly, "I'll show you that we are _not_ in the same league!"

Get Rin angry; check.

I spun around and blasted away as Rin threw her double-bladed sword at me. It whirled back into her hand like a boomerang, but I was already well ahead of her, batting aside Ryuhou bolts as I lured Rin into position.

* * *

In pit one's control room, Maya Yamada leaned a bit closer to her console and watched as Sten started making some very odd moves. "It looks like Sten's going to try something..."

"My guess," Miss Orimura said, "Is that he's going to use the Ignition Boost, exactly like I taught him."

Maya smiled. Sten certainly was turning out to be a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for. Seeing him succeed... it was one of the things that made her feel happiest. Her face took on a reddish tint as she smiled to herself.

"Hold on," Miss Alcott demanded, "What is this Ignition Boost?"

"It's a form of surprise attack in which you close in on your opponent at maximum speed. As long as Murdoch ignites at the right moment, he can even go toe-to-toe with a Representative Contender like Huang or yourself," the black-haired woman then smirked, "This is his only chance, though, because Huang won't fall for it again."

Maya's hand clenched and her brow furrowed.

* * *

I led Rin all around the arena, dodging and deflecting her Ryuhou bolts so I could get her turned around. She matched me move for move, though, expertly bringing her Shenlong into tight turns and odd maneuvers, some of which I'd been certain would have gotten her into optimal position.

I struck Souten Gagetsu away and ducked a volley as we dove back for the floor of the arena. Rin stopped moving and kept firing.

I turned in a wide arc back toward her left side. Pre-emptively, she turned left, but I faked out and turned right. Rin's expression of horror was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen.

This was my chance.

I turned toward her and was about to engage my Ignition Boost, but the entire arena's shield violently lit up as a massive purple blast hit it.

Then the unthinkable happened.

The blast pierced the arena's shield and exploded inside the arena.

The shockwave knocked both of us back. I managed to right myself with a backflip, but Rin wasn't so lucky. The Chinese girl slammed into the ground, but quickly took to the air again. The explosion still hadn't subsided, and flames shot out in every direction.

I was completely shocked. "What the hell..."

* * *

For the first time in a long time, Houki was well and truly panicking. Every warning there was was flashing on Miss Yamada's screens, and the assistant teacher's hands were flying to keep everything under control.

"What the devil just happened out there?" Cecilia cried, her gaze flying worriedly between displays.

"Sten...," Houki muttered.

"The system's been damaged!" Miss Yamada sounded shocked, "An unidentified object has pierced the arena's deflection shield!"

Miss Orimura cursed and picked up a microphone for the loudspeakers. "Suspend the match!" she yelled, "Murdoch, Huang, get out of there _immediately_!"

* * *

Doors clanked shut over the stands all around the arena, leaving me, Rin, and whatever had pierced the arena's shields alone together.

"Chifuyu, what the hell's going on?!" I yelled.

She didn't respond, but Rin did as her face appeared on a screen. "Sten, the match is cancelled! Get back to the pit, now!"

A bright red screen fizzed into existence to my right.

WARNING

HEAT SOURCE DETECTED IN ARENA CENTER

UNIDENTIFIED INFINITE STRATOS UNIT

UNIT LOCKED

"Another IS?!" I asked myself, "No ID, either. How the hell is it locking me out?!"

Rin's screen moved in front of it. "What are you doing?! Get back to the pit!"

"Get back? And what are _you_ gonna do?!"

The Shenlong maneuvered to hover between me and the still-smoky crater, its back to me. Rin gripped the Souten Gagetsu in both hands, holding it pointed at the center of the crater.

"I'm going to buy us some time, but _you_ need to get out of here right now!"

"Wait a second! There's no way I'm gonna leave you behind!" I yelled, a bit peeved.

"You idiot!" she took her eyes off the crater to look at me, "You're the weaker fighter, so you don't get any choice! Now move!"

"But..."

Rin sighed and seemed to calm a bit. "It's not like I'm going to handle this all the way to the end, okay?" she said, "I'm just standing in until one of the teachers can get out here to-"

"LOOK OUT!" I gunned Paxis' thrusters and tackled Rin out of the way of a powerful-looking blast of cackling purple energy.

I rolled out of the way of another blast and ascended a couple hundred feet. "That beam weapon has a higher output than Cecilia's IS!" I marvelled.

It was then that both Rin and I realized I had her in a princess carry. "Hey, you idiot!" she yelled, slamming a steel-clad palm into my cheek and pushing as she bashed the top of my head with her other hand, "You need to let me go!"

"Ack! Watch it, I'm trying to drive here, woman!"

"Ah, shut up! Shut up!"

A warning flashed. "Ah, here it comes!"

I had to pull an Immelmann to bring myself up over the literal shelf of energy that the unidentified IS sent at me.

Finally, it revealed itself.

It was a massive, obsidian IS that covered the pilot's entire body. Beyond that, it had to be at least ten feet tall! Its arms reached all the way down to its ankles, and a pair of gigantic cannons were built into its wrists.

What struck me most were the eyes. Five glowing crimson circles set into a gold faceplate.

"What the hell is that thing?" I asked to no one in particular, before yelling, "Identify yourself, asshole!"

She gave no response. She just... stood there...

"Answer me, dammit! Who are you?!"

Sill no answer. I was about five seconds away from charging at it when I heard Maya's voice over the IS channel.

"Sten, Huang, you need to vacate the arena at once! The teachers will be there soon in their IS units to neutralize the threat!" she said.

"Sorry, Maya, but we've gotta keep it occupied until everyone evacuates," I argued.

"I understand how you must feel about this, but you just can't do that! Get out of there _now_!"

"Sten, run!" I heard Cecilia yell.

"Get out of there!" Houki agreed.

I pressed my lips together and sighed out my nose. They both thought I was so frail. I turned to Rin. "Where do you stand on all of this?"

"Are you talking to me, you jerk?" she hissed, "Can't you see all I want is for you to let me go? I can't even move with you holding me like this!"

She flailed her arms and legs until I let her go. "Sorry!"

We both dodged as the other IS sent another lance of energy at us. We were both rendered speechless as she lowered her arm and hunched her back. A pair of thrust rings on her shoulder blades sent out jets of smoke as she launched herself into the air at me.

"Holy crap!" I banked to avoid the mammoth fist she sent at me, and had to split off from Rin as the unknown IS loosed a volley of smaller bolts from a pair of shoulder-mounted cannons.

"Looks like she's ready to do this!" Rin smiled a bit, flying in figure eights of varying sizes and vectors.

"Oh, really? What gave you that idea?" I smirked and broke off. The IS stopped firing as Rin and I met up again and hovered.

"Sten," she said, "How 'bout you charge in, while I cover you? That sword's your only offensive weapon, right?"

"Pretty much. Now, let's get this bitch!"

The other IS beat us to the punch, flying in a wide arc and coming around to face us with its arms raised Superman style, cannons alight. I glanced a shot off Yukihira Nigata and watched as Rin fired her Ryuhou. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could see that each shot had a barely-there orange tinge. Honestly, if I didn't have the Hyper Sensors sharpening all of my senses, they would've been totally invisible.

Rin went after her, swinging Souten Gagetsu like a madwoman. If there was a method to her madness, I couldn't see it.

They looped around, and the IS flew up into a gigantic cloud.

"Rin, wait!" I yelled, but it was too late. Rin dove into the clouds after it and kept up her Ryuhou assault, blasting every direction indiscriminately. I groaned in annoyance and went after her.

* * *

"Sten, come in! If you can hear me, please respond!" Maya was freaking out, and Chifuyu was pretty sure she could see tears welling in the younger woman's eyes. "Are either of you listening to me?! Sten! Huang! What are you doing?!"

Chifuyu huffed in annoyance. "They said they could handle the situation, didn't they? So, I say we let them go for it."

The three other occupants of the room turned to her in shock. "What?" Maya cried, totally frazzled, "Please say that you're not serious! How can you say something like that at a time like this?!"

Chifuyu smiled lightheartedly and walked over to the refreshments table. She poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot that sat under the grinder.

"Oh, calm down. Just chill and have a cup of coffee or something," Chifuyu picked up the spoon in the sugar box and poured a lump into her coffee, "You're only stressing because your body's low on sugar!"

Chifuyu picked up the cup, but as she put it to her lips, Maya stopped her. "Umm... before you drink that, what you actually just added was the salt..."

Chifuyu's eyes popped open and saw that, indeed, the sugar box was still closed and she had the salt spoon in her left hand. The teacher blushed in embarrassment.

"It's okay that you're worried too, Miss Orimura."

Oh, is it now? Chifuyu then proceeded to hold her assistant's jaw open and pour the lukewarm-at-best, salty coffee down her throat.

"Please ma'am!" Alcott said from in front of Houki, "Give me authorization to use my IS! I can move out right away!"

Chifuyu put the cup down again as Maya went into a fit of coughing. She crossed her arms and said, "I wish I could do that, but...," she turned to look at one of the ceiling-mounted monitors, "Well..."

LOCKDOWN LEVEL: 4 INITIATED

ALL ENTRANCED AND EXITS SEALED

DEFLECTION SHIELDS MAXIMIZED

Houki stared at it in shock and horror. "The arena's deflection shield's at level four..."

"And on top of that," Alcott muttered, "All the doors have been automatically sealed."

"As things stand," Chifuyu said, "We can't evacuate, and we can't go in and stage a rescue either."

* * *

I was really starting to get sick of this game of Cat and Mouse. The other IS had to have some sort of sonic dampener, because neither Rin or I could hear a damn thing. I glanced at my shield readout.

SHIELD ENERGY: 243/600

I'd been hit pretty hard. Rin's shields were still in pretty good shape, but then, I was the one the other IS seemed to be most interested in.

I heard a _whoosh_ sound a split second before a massive fist collided with me. I managed to put my arms in the way, but I accidentally dropped Yukihira. It dissolved into particles of light and returned to my weapons list before it could fall more than a hundred feet, though.

She kept up the pressure, pushing us out of the cloud Rin was in and into another.

* * *

Cecilia turned and faced Miss Orimura. "Very well, then! Deem this an emergency and ask for UN support!"

"We've done that, but they can't get in either," her teacher responded, "The third years are trying to crack the system as we speak. Just as soon as they get the deflection shield under control, we'll be sending in the troops."

"So... I suppose that means that all we can do right now is wait..."

"That's right," Miss Orimura confirmed, nodding, "But _you_ couldn't help the shock troops in any case, so there's no need for you to worry about it."

"What?" Cecilia cried indignantly, "Exactly _what_ are you trying to say?!"

"I'm saying that Blue Tears is designed to fight multiple opponents by itself. Which means that if you tried to work with a group, you'd just be getting in everyone's way."

"No, that isn't true! I wouldn't! How could you think something like that?!"

"So have you had group training? What was your position on the team? What was your allies' formation?"

"But I-" Miss Orimura cut her off again.

"How did your squad assess the enemy, and what was the duration of the operation?"

Cecilia threw her hands and said, flustered, "Alright then, I give up! You've made your point..."

"I hope so. You need to understand why things are as they are."

* * *

A volley of shock blasts struck the strange, obsidian IS, and it tumbled in its flight path.

"Sten, do it now!" Rin cried out.

I brought Yukihira to bear again and activated the barrier-null attack. The obsidian IS righted itself and spun out of the way again as I viciously slashed at it. The pilot pulled back to a safe distance and opened up with her shoulder cannons again.

"Oh, you idiot!" Rin screamed, more than a bit peeved at me, "Aim that thing like you're supposed to! That was your fourth try, already!"

"Damn it, shut up, Rin! I am aiming!"

SHIELD ENERGY: 60/600

UNIT POWER: 23%

"Shit...," I muttered. I only had enough shield power to use the barrier-null one more time. And then, one hit would be the end of Sten Murdoch. Not an idea I particularly fancied.

"Sten, break away!" Rin yelled.

"Don't need to tell me!"

I banked and stayed close to the ground while Rin stayed high in the air. A shoulder cannon targeted each of us and kept up the barrage.

"What are we going to do?!" Rin asked, "We'll never beat her without some kind of strategy!"

"Hey, you can still run if you wanna!" I said playfully.

"Who said anything about running, you jerk?! I'm still a Representative Contender, you know!"

I pulled up beside her. "Alright, how's this sound? You move in and deal some damage, while I distract it and take the heat?"

Her face flushed and she looked down at her feet. "That's appreciated..."

A blast whizzed by her head, and she barely managed to dodge. "Stay focused!" I snapped.

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know!"

Rin made a break for it and the IS turned its cannons on me again. I skimmed along the ground, deflecting what shots I could as I tried to get out of the obsidian IS' range, which seemed to be fairly limited.

It stopped, and the pilot settled back into the center of the crater, where the fight had started.

I stopped and panted a bit, tired from all the flying around.

"You know what? Don't you think its movements are a bit _too_ mechanical?" I said, bringing up Rin's face on a screen to my left.

"Hmm? What do you mean? It _is_ a machine, you know," Rin replied.

"No, that's not what I meant," I said, a bit confused, "I'm wondering if... well, I'm wondering if there's anyone in that thing at all."

"What? But an IS won't work without a pilot."

"Well, think about it. Every time I've used the barrier-null attack to try to take it out, it's evaded, tried to punch me, then pulled back to a safe distance and opened up with those damn cannons. Then, it stops firing after a bit, and lets us regroup to talk."

Rin's eyes slowly widened. "Now that you mention it, I've noticed it hasn't attacked us much when we're talking to each other. It's almost like... she's curious about our conversation."

"Well, that wasn't an ominous way to put it at all," I said snidely as Rin settled into a hover beside me.

She shook her head in denial again. "There's no way it can be unmanned," she said, "Someone has to be inside an IS or it won't move. That's just how it is."

The dust cloud started to finally clear around the obsidian IS and I could see the pentacle of crimson eyes staring at us. Its gaze was cold, almost calculating.

"But think about it, Rin," I said, "What if there really is _no one_ in there?"

"Wait, are you saying we _could_ beat it if it's unmanned?"

I smirked and tightened my grip on Yukihira Nigata. "Damn straight. If it was unmanned, we could pound the crap out of it and no one would get hurt."

"Pound the crap out of it, eh?" she said, as if she were weighing the words, "I like it."

"Reiraku Byakuya," I said, "Paxis' all-out attack. The full force of my IS is too much for a regular match, so I can't go all out against people without running the risk of hurting or even killing them. However, I _could_ pull out all the stops if my opponent was unmanned."

"Look," Rin said, "I don't know anything about your Reiraku thing, or _whatever_, but you can't seem to hit a damn thing right now!"

"Oh, I'll hit it," I said, smirking.

She sighed. "Well, you sound pretty determined. So, even though I don't think it's a possibility, let's just say it's unmanned and attack the thing anyway."

"That's _so_ your style, Rin!" I laughed and punched her shoulder.

"So, what's the plan, Supreme General Murdoch?" Rin asked. I smiled at her old nickname for me. I couldn't even remember the last time she'd called me that.

"On my mark, I want you to fire Ryuhou at full power at the stinkin' thing's face, got it?"

"Sure, but you do know that it'll miss, right?"

"No worries. It'll be fine even if it does miss. Alright, let's do th-"

"_**STEEEEEEN**_!"

What the f*ck?! I turned to see Houki standing on an observation deck near pit one.

"IF YOU'RE A MAN," she screamed, "THEN YOU'D BETTER DEFEAT THE ENEMY _COMPLETELY_!"

The Obsidian turned its head to look at Houki and raised an arm.

"Crap!" I yelled, "Houki run!"

The shield was still up, but this damn IS could obviously pierce it. Purple energy started building up in the cannon.

"Rin, do it now!"

"You've got it!" the Ryuhou cannons glowed as they built up power.

I jetted in front of Rin just before she fired. "Idiot! What are you doing?! Get out of my line of fire!"

I turned and shot her the most venomous glare I'd ever sent anyone. "JUST FIRE THE F*CKING CANNONS!"

She hesitated for another second, before she said, "You crazy jerk! Whatever happens, it's _not_ my fault!"

The Ryuhou fired their maximum yield straight at my back, just as I activated my energy intakes. White hot pain flared through my entire body, and the whole world turned red as the blasts stopped moving and started feeding into my engines. I screamed as my unit power climbed to 100%.

Yukihira Nigata's blade blazed orange.

REIRAKU BYAKUYA: ACTIVE

IGNITION BOOST: ACTIVE

I shot forward, spending less than a nanosecond accelerating to 700 KPH.

The Obsidian's right fist flew out to meet me, but I saw it coming. I brought down Yukihira Nigata, and the IS' shield was completely cancelled out.

The orange blade severed the right arm at the shoulder, and for a brief second, I thought we'd won. Then, the left fist slammed into my side like a freight train, slamming me into the wall of the crater.

"Ow...," I muttered. I felt I could barely move, I was in so much pain.

The Obsidian stood over my and raised its remaining arm cannon. Rin screamed desperately for me to get away, but I ignored her. The arena's shield flickered for a split second, but it didn't escape my notice. It had been disabled, which meant...

I smirked.

"How's your aim?"

"_Perfect_, of course!"

The massive IS stumbled as a storm of blue energy bolts struck its back. Behind it, Cecilia, clad in the Blue Tears, was staring down the scope of her sniper rifle, taking aim.

I openly laughed, I was so happy. No dying for me today! "Cecilia, take 'er out!"

"I'm on it!"

A single lance of energy burst from the barrel of her rifle and, quick as a lightning bolt, went clean through the Obsidian, which collapsed to the ground.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and looked at the image of Cecilia that popped up beside me. "Looks like I made it without a second to spare."

"I knew you'd come through for me, Blondie!" I said.

She blushed. "Oh? Do you really mean it? Well, that's to be expected, right?"

"Well, it's over now. In any case-"

WARNING

DETECTING ENEMY IS REACTIVATION

"Oh, you're kidding me!" I yelled, whipping around and launching myself back at the Obsidian just in time to see its remaining arm firing at me.

The blast was the same as the one that had pierced the arena shield, but I flew into it anyway, screaming as my vision started to get fuzzy and tunnelled.

I don't remember anything else, just... black.

- IS -

Seven hours had passed since the Obsidian IS had been shut down. The sun was low in the sky, leaving everything on the island glowing with a reddish aura.

In the infirmary, Rin sat beside Sten's bed. He'd been unconscious since the end of the match, but all of the doctors had said that he'd be totally fine.

Rin desperately wanted to deny how horrified she'd been when she's lost sight of Sten inside the blast. It had felt like her soul had been rend into pieces. She smiled and squeezed the dummy's hand, relieved that it still felt warm; if a bit limp.

She slowly leaned forward, not really conscious of her actions.

* * *

Awareness returned suddenly.

Well, not so much awareness, as feeling. I could feel one spot that probably would've hurt a lot more if I hadn't slept through getting the injury that had undoubtedly caused it on my upper right bicep. I'd probably broken my arm, but the bone had already been repaired, for the most part.

I felt warmth. Not just from the blanket I was under, but... breath. I cracked an eyelid and saw Rin leaning over me, poised to kiss me.

She noticed I was awake immediately and zipped back, blushing furiously.

"Good morning to you too, Rin," I chuckled.

"W-were you awake?" she asked tentatively.

"Only for a minute or so," I replied, more than a bit amused by her jumpiness, "You nervous?"

"What m-makes you say that? I'm not nervous. That's a _completely_ ridiculous thing to say!"

I sat up and looked down at myself. Someone (I dared not imagine who) had changed me into a sleeveless shirt and some baggy shorts, under which I was covered in bandages for burns I couldn't feel. "So what happened to the Obsidian?"

"It got shut down," Rin said, "Don't worry, though, you were the only one who was hurt in the attack. Everyone else is fine."

I sighed. "Now _that's_ a relief..."

I looked out the window as Rin sat back down in the stool beside my bed. Orange clouds rolled lazily across the sky, the fluffy edges looking like pillows.

"You know, now that I think about it, wasn't it on a night just like this that we made that promise about eating sweet and sour pork?" I asked, crossing my arms behind my head and laying down again.

"Huh? You _do_ remember?"

"Of course I do, Rin."

_-It was warm where we sat on the Drop, our legs hanging over the side. Rin and I sat side by side, me leaning back on my hands and Rin resting her head on my shoulder._

_"The sky sure is pretty tonight, huh?" I said. A sheet of orange and red light obscured the blue of the sky as fluffy clouds floated lazily overhead._

_"Yup..."_

_We sat in silence for a few more minutes._

_"Sten?" Rin asked._

_"Yeah, Rin?"_

_"If... if I become a better cook, would you eat my sweet and sour pork every day?"_

_I smiled, the flush if my cheeks mercifully hidden by the light of the sky. "Of course I will!"_

_"You mean it?"_

_"I promise, Rin."_

_I held out my pinkie. She looped hers around mine and we shook on it.-_

"Why didn't you say anything?" she asked.

"Because... well... let me put it this way, Rin. We were twelve. It's a bit unrealistic for you to expect me to be in love with you because of a promise we made then. I-"

"Sten," she put a hand on my shoulder and smiled, "You're right. I just... I don't know. I just wanted to be special to you."

I chuckled and gripped her hand. "Rin, you are, and will always be special to me. You've been my friend for who knows how long, and people don't forget that kind of stuff, even if it has been three years."

She blushed and smiled. I was about to say something else (suggest we go get dinner sometime) when the door opened and a certain British aristocrat skipped in, eyes closed in joy and hands clasped behind her back. "Surprise, Sten, dear!" she cried, totally oblivious to Rin sitting there, "I hope you're feeling better now, but I've come to look after you, so-"

She finally caught sight of Rin and froze. Not in horror, nor in irritation. No, this was anger.

"What is _this_?" she snapped, stomping over to stand over Rin. Cecilia wasn't a tall girl by any means, but next to Rin she was a giant, "Just _what_ are you _doing_ here?! Remember, we decided that _no one_ could make a move on Sten until he wakes up!"

The door slid open again, revealing Houki standing there with her arms crossed. "And what about _you_, then?" she said, "Because from _my_ view of _your_ fat ass, it sure looks like you were trying to get ahead of me."

She sauntered into the room as Cecilia whipped around, embarrassed. "Oh, well- the thing is, uh..."

Meanwhile, Rin was about to blow a gasket. "Get out of here, both of you!" she yelled, "Don't you understand that Sten's _my_ childhood friend?!"

"Well he's _my_ roommate!"

"You're from Class 1-2, Miss Takeaway so you-!"

I cut Cecilia off. "Hey... where's Chifuyu?"

The three of them seemed to come to their senses a bit and stopped arguing. "Now that you ask...," said Cecilia.

"Yeah," Rin agreed, "Where do you think she went?"

"She was right there with us until just a few minutes ago...," Houki added.

All three seemed confused, which in turn confused me. "Either way," I said, "I'm freaking starving. You guys up for dinner?"

"Yep."

"Sounds good!"

"That seems agreeable."

I heaved myself out of bed, took a second to balance myself, then started off toward the door. It didn't take long for Cecilia, Rin and Houki to start in about everything I'd done wrong against the Obsidian.

I smiled and realized that no matter how much I liked to joke about how horrible life was at the academy... I wouldn't change it for the world. These three were too precious to me.

If only I'd known then how many turns for the worse my life was about to take.

* * *

Deep in the bowels of the IS Academy, there is a laboratory used only for the most secret of projects. It was there that the Obsidian IS lay on a table, half a dozen electrodes attached to its head and each of its limbs.

On an observation deck above, Chifuyu Orimura stood just behind Maya Yamada, who was sitting before a console, tapping away at keys and reading the diagnostic data.

"So it really is unmanned," she muttered, "And it seems that the Core is unregistered?"

"I see...," Chifuyu acknowledged.

"There are only 4670 IS Cores worldwide, and yet this IS was equipped with a Core we know nothing about. How is that possible...?"

Chifuyu had no answer for her. She just stared over the console's monitor, almost like she was just waiting for the IS to get back up and start firing again. There was no mistaking that it had been trying to attack Sten, which, for some reason, worried her more than she would ever care to admit.

It seemed that, no matter how safe the ISA liked to believe it was, a storm was brewing.

And Sten Murdoch was standing at its eye.

The Story Continues in

Infinite Stratos: Paxis

Volume II


	6. Author's Note 1

Okay, well... that's Volume I!

It took me many sleepless night, shots of caffeine and clumps of torn out hair to get this just right, so I really appreciate every review you guys leave me!

Volume I took me from early August to a few weeks ago to finish, what with editing and all, so expect a similar wait for Volume II, and eventually, Volume III. When all this is over, I could be convinced to to another three Volumes, but nothing's set in stone yet.

Pfffft! Yeah, it's not like I've started planning it out, already!

Wait... yes I have...

Point being, expect this story to be going for a while! ;D

I'd like to that the 376th Doctor for helping me write this story. Todd, you've ben a great friend through all of this, and you've put up with a lot of crap from me that I probably would've punched you for. I just want to thank you, and I look forward to giving you Volume II to Beta. Take it easy.

To all you who have reviewed so far, I give you my sincerest of thanks, and I hope you enjoyed the first five chapters of the story. At least one of you has expressed your desire for a pairing, so I ask you to check out my profile page's poll. vote for who you think Sten should end up with. It's already been decided, but I could still be swayed. After all, nothing's set in stone...

Cookies for everyone who gets the final pairing right!

Again, thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 6

**- INFINITE STRATOS -**

PAXIS

- 6 -

_"Boy Meets Boy"_

It was October 18th, a freaking godsent Sunday. Since Rin and I'd battled the Obsidian IS, a week and a bit had passed. Days were slow, I didn't understand the lessons...

You know. The usual.

I yawned loudly and rolled over to look at the clock beside my bed. It was really cool, because it was a touch screen with a clock that switched to any mode of time-telling thingamabob you could ever want.

It read 9:32 AM.

"Muuuuuuuurgghh...," I groaned, mashing my face back into my pillows. Obviously, Houki'd gone somewhere else to spend her day; otherwise she'd still have been in her yukata, reading on the other bed. In all honesty, I was glad she was gone. I needed to sleep in every once in a while. Not to mention it would be nice to have a day away from her scowling - not that I didn't enjoy her ever-sunny disposition.

The sad part of it all was that 9:30 was sleeping in now.

Remember those test scores I'd helped Maya carry over to the staff room that time? You know, just before my mom went apeshit? Guess who got top marks in every category!

That's right! Not me!

I failed that test, actually. Although, I'd managed to get myself much higher in rank.

After some digging, I'd learned that every pilot in the school had a numerical rank. When I'd transferred in I was automatically rank 574. By October 18th, I'd fought Cecilia Alcott twice and won once, I'd defeated a haywire IS the size of an elephant, and I'd won several battles against a number of annoying girls who thought that I was just a pathetic poser.

My rank was now 491, which was quite a jump. Then again, it would've been a bigger jump if I could've avoided my dozen-or-so losses.

I pulled up my blanket to my cheekbones and flipped a switch on my night table. The curtains closed again and I tried to even out my breathing.

Or rather, I would've if the Japanese woman at the end of my bed hadn't spoken up.

"Much as you deserve the sleep, Murdoch, you need to get up."

I turned over to see Chifuyu standing in casual clothes. Tee shirt and jeans kind of stuff.

"Fifteen more minutes...," I pulled the blanket over my head.

"Bullshit. You're just going to get even sleepier."

"Then I'll cut you a deal: gimme fifteen minutes and I give you permission to not wake me up."

Chifuyu grabbed the foot of the blanket and yanked it clean off the bed.

"I insist."

"Okay! Okay!"

Five minutes later I was leaning against my desk in jeans, a shirt and a hoodie that Cecilia'd been kind enough to come with me to buy a few days ago. I let out a colossal yawn, and then sneezed.

"Well, that was attractive," Chifuyu smirked and tossed me the tissue box.

I blew my nose. "Hands off, teach."

"You wish," she laughed, "Anyway, I'm here for a few reasons. The first being..."

_*Stab*_

She quickly jabbed my bicep with a syringe and withdrew it into a sealed tube. "Ow!" I yelled, "That was a little uncalled for!"

"Buck up, moron. Tabane told me to send her some blood."

"Oh, so she's a vampire now?!"

_*Whack!*_

She whacked me with her attendance clipboard.

"And where the hell'd that thing come from?!"

She didn't give me a response, and just stared at me, bemused as she shoved the sealed syringe into her pocket.

"Anyway," she said, "Aside from the blood sample, Tabane wanted me to have you run some tests with Paxis."

I groaned.

"So, arena three?"

"Grab your IS suit."

I dragged my sorry ass over to the closet and yanked out my white and blue suit, slinging it over my shoulder.

"Question: is there going to be any sort of upside to today?"

"Well, my brother's coming over later to show his friend's sister around, so you can spend time with boys for a while."

"Okay, upside accepted. To the arena!"

We took the elevator to the ground floor and left the dorms. I turned left down the path to arena three.

She stopped me before I got more than three steps and pointed down the other path. "So you _don't_ intend to have breakfast?"

"Point taken. To the caf!"

And so we ate. Chifuyu expressed how impressed she was with my voracious appetite and I told her that a Caesar salad with a low-fat vinaigrette as dressing didn't seem like enough for a three-and-a-half pound Yorkie.

All that fantastic stuff aside, by 10:43, Chifuyu, Maya and I were standing in the middle of arena three, reading over a list of stuff that Tabane wanted them to take readings of.

Most of it had to do with Reiraku Byakuya, the Yukihira Nigata's energy blade, and their effects on the rest of my systems. The few things that weren't were about the Passive Inertia Canceller - which Maya explained was what allowed the IS to move free of most inertia -, the Hypersensor package - which, for some reason, wasn't mounted on my head, but in the circle of light on my chest that I'd affectionately dubbed my ARC light (the name confused Houki, so I guess Iron Man wasn't well-known in Japan) -, or the physical augmentation systems.

I just found it a bit disturbing that the last item on the list was 'shirtless pics'.

"I am _not_ doing that," I asserted.

"What," Chifuyu asked mockingly, "Afraid to show a little skin to older women?"

"No, not older women. Just her."

"Well, think about it. You send her pictures of your bare chest and she may just do the same for you."

I coughed.

Through all of this, Maya just stood there and blushed. Quite furiously, I might add. When Chifuyu let out a chuckle in a very under-her-breath manner, the little green-haired woman cut in. "O-okay, Sten. Why don't you go ahead and b-bring out Yukihira?"

I cast my eyes to her. "Not enjoying the conversation, are you?"

"N-no... Not really."

I shrugged. "Anyway, fair ladies, if you would step back."

Maya and Chifuyu stood back a ways.

I deployed Paxis' right gauntlet and the Yukihira Nigata materialized. The metal blade collapsed and the light blue energy that could slice through nearly anything flashed into shape. Like this, Yukihira Nigata was almost as tall as I was, from prow to pommel.

"So, now what?" I asked.

A path of holographic target dummies appeared. "Well," Chifuyu said, "Start by destroying these targets with the regular energy blade, and then we'll go back over it with Reiraku after."

"No IS?"

"Just what you have now."

I ran at the first target. They weren't anything special; just a loosely human-shaped holographic projection with a three-ringed target in the middle.

I impaled it and dragged the blade out, using my momentum to slash the second and twirl it over my head. Kendo was beyond my comprehension. It was a sword art that required years of training to use effectively, and I'd been doing it for about a month.

Whoopass Fu, on the other hand, was a transposable skill. The principle was the same for almost every weapon designed for use in hand-to-hand combat: keep a firm grip on the weapon with the thumb and index finger knuckle, while using momentum and gentle nudges to guide strikes.

Pure hand-to-hand involved eyeballing the opponent's collar area. You can tell where a lot of body movement comes from just by looking at how someone flexes their neck. Overall, Whoopass Fu was a good fighting style.

About seven seconds after I'd dissipated the first target, I hacked apart the last one.

"Great, Sten. We got what she wanted. Now repeat all that with Reiraku Byakuya active."

So I did. It was still easy, but I noticed the blade moved much more easily when it glowed orange. It must neutralize negative reactions, too.

"Okay, Sten. Flight drills."

I materialized the rest of Paxis and sent Yukihira Nigata away. I looked up just as a long course of rings appeared about a hundred feet off the ground. I shot through them as fast as I could without using Ignition Boost to accelerate faster, but I still found my time unsatisfying. Not to mention that the rings didn't disappear when I went through them. I did a little upward of forty laps in a minute and fifty-seven seconds.

But yeah. Blah blah blah flight drills blah blah blah PIC testing blah blah blah shirtless pics...

All that fun stuff behind me, I set out for the changing room. Maya walked me.

"So, no offense, but why exactly were you here today?" I asked.

"Well..." she said, fiddling with the drawstrings of my sweater (she'd insisted on carrying something), "I need to know more about your IS if I'm going to be your Operator."

I smiled. "Oh, okay! Don't take that question the wrong way, though; I really enjoy your company. I was just a bit curious."

She blushed.

"Besides," I added, "I see your logic. Paxis isn't exactly your typical IS unit, now is it?"

"No, it isn't," Maya confirmed. "I've never seen an IS with the Hypersensor in the chest instead of mounted on the pilot's head before. And that light-"

"ARC light," I corrected.

She smiled. "Right. It has a whole bunch of power conduits coming off of it that don't lead anywhere."

"That's weird."

"I wonder what they all do."

"Well, one of them's definitely a Unibeam."

She looked up at me curiously.

...

Wait, seriously?

"You don't know what a Unibeam is?"

"No clue."

"What about Iron Man?"

"Is that the one with the cape and blue tights?"

A little part of my soul died at that moment. "Never mind..."

Maya laughed and hooked her arm around mine. Not that I minded, of course, but it was a bit more touchy-feely than her usual 'shy schoolgirl' persona.

I bent my arm slightly to bring her a bit closer.

Wait, what?

Okay, _I_ was starting to creep _me_ out, now. Maya, I'd found out after some gentle probing (not a word, fools), was twenty-one. Hence, six years older than me. And my teacher.

So why exactly was I hitting on said twenty-one-year-old teacher, you may ask?

Simple answer.

She started it.

A few minutes of awkward yet somehow satisfying and fulfilling silence later, we were in front of the entrance to my locker room. I took my sweater from her and smiled. "Thanks."

She smiled back, her cheeks dusted red. "My pleasure."

She walked off, her fingers meshed together in front of her. It was, to say the least, a little too much cute for one woman.

I dragged my eyes away from her retreating figure and sighed. I really had to get over this whole 'hot for teacher' thing...

I turned back to the door and walked into the locker room. Now that I thought about it, it seemed an awful waste for only one person to have over a hundred lockers all to himself.

Then again, I could have as many IS suits as I wanted and never have to have two in the same locker.

I walked up to my locker and punched it. Oh yeah; I had a punch-to-open locker. Win level: 1000%!

I touched a button on the datapad that I'd left in the metal box and started to talk. "Note to self: establish some limits about what you'll do for Tabane. Shirtless pics? Too far. Beyond that, it's getting a bit nippy out there. Not that I mind, of course; I'm Canadian. But still, bad weather for posing. And for the love of God, man! Get it together on the Maya side of things!"

I pulled the zipper down from my neck and dragged it along the track to my left shoulder, around, under my armpit and down to my waist. Weird layout, right?

I'd taken to making voice recordings while I was changing. No particular reason why; just wanted something to do.

"So I think I'm gonna have some Sloppy Joes for lunch today. They're on for an American special, so I hope I can get there before they're all gone. Actually, I'm probably gonna be the one to clean them out. The girls hardly eat anything. Well, aside from Takatsuki. We regularly pig out. She told me the reason she's okay with gaining weight is because it apparently just all goes to her boobs, so no complaints on my end."

I yanked my suit down to my waist and paused. "In other news, my dad still hasn't written me back, but that's sort of understandable. It isn't like he's nextdoor or anything. Mom's talked to the headmaster two or three times, trying to get me expelled and Paxis handed over to some chick named Kanzashi who apparently didn't get an IS because pretty much every company in the world scrambled to make one for me as soon as they found out about me and scrapped 'em just as fast when Tabane beat them to the punch. I should probably apologize to her. But, getting back on track, so far mom's had no luck, but getting called out of class to talk to the headmaster is getting a little annoying. Not that she isn't a nice lady, but-"

"Hey."

"JAYZUS!" I leapt ten feet into the air. Why the hell was there a girl in _my freaking locker room_?! Actually, that's a bad question. Never mind.

I turned around to see someone unexpected behind me.

"Olivia?" I asked, a little shocked.

Standing there, arms crossed across her stomach and eyes on the floor, my older sister looked really nervous. Not that I could really blame her; mom would probably have a cow if she knew Olivia had so much as _seen_ me.

The fact that my IS suit was hiked low around my waist only added to the awkwardness. Well, for me, at least.

"Umm..." she said.

Damn right. Ever heard of catching someone in the hallway?

"I feel obligated to tell you that if you're here to tell me that you hate me and want nothing more than to chop off my nuts and feed them to me, get in line. My room mate's got dibs."

Her eyes went wide and she started shaking her head rapidly. "No no no! Nothing like that! I just wanted to talk to you..."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oooookay...? Any reason you couldn't come when I'm not almost naked?"

That was when she realized that my current state of dress was less than ideal. "I just thought maybe this would be more private."

"Yeah, I suppose. Anyway, what's all this about?"

"Well, we haven't seen each other in ten years. Whether mom likes it or not, you're still my baby brother and I want to get to know you."

Well, that wasn't what I was expecting, to say the least.

It actually made me a little bit... _mad_.

"And what makes you think I'm even a little enthused to get to know _you_?"

Her breath caught and she visibly gulped. "I just thought-"

"No. You don't get to do this; not now, at least. You've only just walked back into my life after how many years? Oh yeah! _Ten_!" I yelled.

She cringed.

"To be honest, I'm not sure if I even want to have a relationship with you at all, let alone a siblingly one! So no, I don't give a damn what you thought, Olivia! You abandoned me, plain and simple. I have every right to completely bust my head at you right now, and frankly, I'm inclined-"

She rushed up and threw her arms around me.

I just stopped. Why was she trying so hard to do this when I was pretty sure I was making it clear I wanted her to leave? Why make it hard on both of us?

I was poised to shove her away when I felt hot tears on my bare shoulder.

She was crying. _Sobbing,_ more like.

That was when I realized that she really meant this.

Olivia Murdoch wanted to be my sister again.

"I-I'm sor-sorry that w-we left you!" she bawled, "Y-you're a g-good person, and you deserve be-better!"

To put the feelings that were shooting through me in those moments into words would take a lot more words than I know. It was pissing me off, but at the same time I was starting to calm down. She meant this. She was being sincere, and that gave me pause. God, that sounded sappy. I like to think I'm not a sappy person.

Rin could probably write a book on all the sappy things I say and do.

But, that didn't matter. In the end, Olivia's desire to make everything right pierced the wall I'd put up around my desire for my sisters to be a part of my life. Suddenly, at least one of them mattered.

I slowly put an arm around her to show that I understood, and I ran my other hand down the back of her head to the nape of her neck. My eyes were wide as I struggled to hold back tears.

"I-" I sputtered, "I don't know what to say..."

So, neither of us said anything. We just hugged as she cried and I finally let the waterworks go.

* * *

What seemed like hours later, she left to go tell Valerie that they had a brother again. I'd thrown my clothes back on and was on my way to meet Ichika and his friends. Apparently, they were touring around because the friend's little sister was going to attend ISA next year and wanted to get the lay of the land. I thought that was as good a reason as any.

From what I knew, they'd already left the monorail station and were probably, if I knew anything at all about the layout of the school at this point, headed past arena four. That, I'd decided, was where I would intercept them.

So yeah. I walked, and stuff...

Eventually, I spotted them; a pair of redheads and another guy just a little bit shorter than me. Ichika was gesturing to the arena. "-lots of arenas to facilitate a greater number of battles. People regularly challenge each other here, so there has to always be an arena available. There are five at the Academy."

"Six, actually," I said, startling them, "Though, one of them's an open-air, holographic racetrack that goes around the whole island, so it doesn't technically count, I suppose..."

Ichika smiled. "I was wondering when we'd meet up. It's good to meet you."

I shook his hand. "Likewise."

He pointed out the two behind him. "This is my buddy, Dan Gotanda, and his sister, Ran."

I held out a hand and said, "Great to meet you guys!"

When nothing happened I took a closer look at him. Dan was giving me a bit of a 'dead fish' look, and Ran was hiding behind her brother and weakly holding up a finger at me, her jaw hanging a few inches over her feet.

"D-Dan, is that-?"

"Yeah."

"St-Sten Murdoch?"

"I prefer to go by Santa Claus, but yeah. That'll do," I joked.

No reaction.

Ichika leaned over to me. "Just give them a minute. Meeting you is sort of a big deal right now."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Really? I was under the impression that most of the world (women (cough cough)) didn't like me."

"Actually, you're a bit of a celebrity right now."

What the f*ck? Is it even possible to be a celebrity without knowing it? I don't think so.

"Interesting..." I muttered.

Ran and Dan hadn't moved.

"Anyway," I said, clapping my hands together, "If we're done being dead fish, hows about we get on with this tour thing?"

So I took them through the school. They were a little amazed by the academy spire, but then, who could blame them? It was pretty amazing and beautiful.

Ran stopped me as we passed the IS storage hangar. "Hey, Sten?"

"Yeah?"

"How many IS Units does the academy have?" she asked.

"I think around two or three hundred. I don't really visit the storage hangar often, obviously, so I don't know."

She nodded and looked back around. "So I'd only really come here if I needed to fight someone?"

"Well, yeah," I said, "But word through the grapevine is that next year each student is going to be supplied with their own PTU until they graduate, which means the school'll have to double its supply of units."

"What's a PTU?"

"Personal Training Unit. Kind of like a run-of-the-mill Personal Unit, but supplied to trainees to see if they've got potential. They wanted to just give them to second and third years, but I guess they realized it'd be efficient to go another path."

Dan nudged me. "So you're the _only_ guy here?" he asked, a smirk on his face.

I laughed and nodded. "Unfortunately."

"What the hell do you mean by that? I know guys who'd kill to be in your position!"

He sure was naïve. I considered giving him a good smackdown, but thought of a better solution to it. "Dan, I imagine you wear underwear, yes?" I asked, looking at him with partially squinted eyes.

He gave me an odd look. "Yeeeeeah...?"

"Now, I bid thee imagine waking up and looking in your drawer to find bits of clothes missing; every day getting closer to having to attend school in your pajamas... Never knowing when the clothing will run out..."

The three of them just looked at me. I groaned in annoyance.

"They raid my underwear drawer! Houki's laid traps, but they get past, somehow."

"Wait," Ichika said, "Houki? As in Houki Shinonono?"

"Yeah. She's my roommate."

"Wow..." he muttered, "I mean, I knew she was here but I never thought that she'd be roomed with a _guy_. She must be hard on you."

"Oh, you know. Beatings, training beatings, lunch beatings, beatings before bed... nothing I can't handle," I laughed, "Rin's been pretty much the same."

"You know Rin, too?!"

I guess Rin didn't tell him. Not surprising, really; that girl's head was a bag full of cats.

"She used to live near my house up until three years ago. Kind of my best friend."

"Huh..."

My pocket buzzed.

This confused me greatly, as I didn't have a cell phone. I tapped my pocket and there was definitely something in there. It felt flat, with defined corners and a definite rectangular shape.

I reached into my pocket.

"Something wrong, Sten?" Ran asked.

The thing was a slate of glass with a holographic display and a thin metal rim. A very high-end phone, by the looks of it. "Any of you lose your cell?"

"Nope."

"Nuh-uh."

"I have mine at home."

I raised an eyebrow. "Well, shit."

That was when I noticed a small, pulsing icon near the top left. I tapped it and a window with a bunch of text in it popped up. Judging by all the stars and hearts in it, it could've only been from one person. I opened the message and didn't get past the first line.

_Hi, Stennie-Kun! 3_

"Oh, this'll be good," I said. I stuffed it back into my pocket and turned back to the three Japanese kids, "Sorry, guys, but I have to go deal with this."

We said our goodbyes and I walked over to a bench well away from any other IS units. God knows, if I stood too close, Tabane might hack in and have one glomp me for her. I pulled out the phone and reopened the message.

_Hi, Stennie-Kun! 3_

_It's Taba-Chan! I know you've been dying to hear from me about all the super-genius things I've been working on o.O but I'm gonna put that off for a while!_

This couldn't be good. I walked over to the vending machine and cracked open a Coke can.

_I just wanted to tell you... I'm pregnant! 3 Guess who's the daddy!_

I ejected my mouthful of coke all over the vending machine.

_Kidding, Stennie-Kun! Honestly, you're so eassyyyyyy! So, I wanted to tell you that I'm gonna come visit in a bit. Excited! Don't tell Chi-Channnn, I want it to surprise her, 'kay? And I should tell you what Houki wants for Christmas! Ooh, I should tell you what _I_ want for Christmas!_

Jeeze... stop getting ahead of yourself, Tabane. Christmas isn't for another two months.

_But that can wait a bit, okay? In truth, I just wanted to check up on you after that whole Obsidian thing... Are you okay? 3 _

Well, at least she was normal about being concerned.

_I heard you got beat up pretty bad, but you saved the day like a superhero! I wish I'd been watching the news... I miss you. But that's beside the point! I'll be there soon and I'll make sure nothing happens to you! 33333_

_3 Love you, Stennie-Kun! See you soon! 3_

I sighed and hit the reply button.

_Sounds good. I'm fine, just a few cuts and bruises. Nothing a manly man like me can't handle! ;)_

_And also, not funny! I spat my drink all over the place!_

I stuffed the phone back in my pocket and stared at the dorm.

Anyway, I did very little that day, so I'll skip to the end.

* * *

Houki rolled the blinds shut and plomped back onto her bed. Seeing her dressed casually was rare, but I had to say I wasn't complaining. Anything and everything she wore seemed to suit her. I knew a lot of people who would've been jealous. She'd had a draining day, from what I'd heard from her when she walked in. She'd barely said two words.

I was sitting at my computer, mucking about on some game. I wasn't sure what it was. There were Elves. Least, I thought they were Elves...

Ooh.

Anyway, shut up Sten! Get on with the story!

And upon the door, a soft hand did rap thrice...

"'S open," I called lazily and rubbed my face.

Maya walked in, in all her charmingness, and smiled. It was heart-meltingly cute. In fact, her cuteness had somehow been magnified a few hundred times. It was actually a little bit stunning. Rather, _she_ was, now that I took a closer look at her. She had her hair tied back in a low ponytail, but for a pair of strands running down beside her face, and a necklace with a crystal heart-shaped pendant was clasped around her neck. She had on a pair of sparkling white earrings, too. Also, while she normally wore short dresses of various colours, she'd opted instead for a skirt and a loose, pale blue, long-sleeved shirt with an IS on the front.

Needless to say, I was a little bit stuck on words. "Uhhh... hi, Maya."

She beamed and her cheeks went red. Again. Too easy...

"Hi, Sten," she then turned to Houki, "Miss Shinonono. I'm here to inform you that the school has made new arrangements for you. From now on, you'll be roomed with Shizune Takatsuki in room 1006."

Houki shot up off the bed. "What?!" she cried, a lot more distressed that I thought she'd be, "But I thought the school was fine with me and Sten living together!"

The corner of the petite teacher's mouth twitched, and she poked the arm of her glasses. "A fifteen-year-old girl and boy living together? I'm sure the arrangement has been quite uncomfortable for you, even if the school tolerated it up until now."

Houki looked like someone had killed her dog. She glanced at me. "But I... I..."

"Hey, it's okay," I got up and hugged her, "I'm sure you'll have just as many awkward moments in another room as you will here."

She was silent for a second, before she shoved me away and exploded. "You mean you don't even _care_ if I move out?!"

"Houki," I stammered, "I didn't say-"

"Miss Yamada, I want to move out _right now_!"

She quickly grabbed her bag, stuffed her yukata into it and stormed out the door, not even bothering to grab her toothbrush. Maya had at some point moved over to clutch my arm as we watched the girl huff and puff and blow the house d- I mean leave.

"Well...," she said slowly, "That was a little bit odd."

"For me, not so much."

Treat me like a freaking demon, why don't you? Honestly, it's like I was a damn piss-everyone-off machine! I ran a hand through my hair and sat on the foot of my bed.

"You know," I said quietly, "Sometimes I wish she could understand me."

Maya sat down beside me and put her hands in her lap. "Well, she is a teenage girl. I know from experience that they aren't the most understanding."

I leaned my head into her shoulder. Or, I would've if she wasn't so short. I felt much better as our heads rested against each other, and we just enjoyed each others' company.

* * *

I was five minutes into trying to sleep when I heard someone knock again. I swear, Maya had looked like she'd had to summon all of her strength not to crawl into the second bed and sleep there. Maybe she's forgotten something when she'd left?

I threw off the covers and trudged over to the door, scratching the back of my head the whole way there. I unlocked the door and there stood Houki, arms crossed, feet apart, and eyebrows furrowed. "I..." she trailed off.

"I'm sor-"

"I've- I've come to broker terms..." she ground out slowly.

"And you're speaking so formally because...?"

"In regards to the individual tournament next month..." she clamped her hands over her arms and had to force every word out, "If I win..."

"If you win, then what?"

"Then... Ugh! THEN YOU HAVE TO TAKE ME OUT ON A DATE!" she screamed, way louder than necessary.

I thought I heard some muttering down the hall as Houki and I stared at each other awkwardly. Her lips were pressed together so hard I was afraid they'd bruise.

"Umm..." I said, blinking, "Okay. You know, all you really had to do was ask."

She turned very robotically and marched off, down the hall and around the corner. I wouldn't have minded so much if she'd just asked me out, but screaming it at the top of her lungs for the whole dorm to hear was a bit much. Ah, either way, it was 11:33. Who the hell would've been up to hear, anyway?

- IS -

"Hey, have you all heard the latest rumor?"

"What, you mean about the IS from the other day?"

"Supposedly a machine that was still in testing went on a rampage."

"No! Whoever wins the tournament this month gets to go on a date with Murdoch!"

Off to one side of the bustling classroom, Houki and Cecilia were talking about various cool new IS odds and ends. Both were a bit annoyed by the strange attitudes of their classmates.

Not that giddy was out of the ordinary, but they seemed more hyped up than usual.

"So, do you know what it is that all these girls are so excited about?" Cecilia asked.

"I have absolutely no idea whatsoever," Houki replied, sorting through her notes.

At the back of the class, Lucy and Fox Girl were standing with another friend. They all looked a bit nervous.

"The story's distorted and spreading like crazy...," Lucy muttered.

"You must have said something to someone," the third girl said, "That _has_ to be it."

"Oh, no way! I don't really think that could've been what happened at all!" said Fox Girl, smiling lazily.

At which point, I walked in. "Morning, everyone."

I immediately noticed almost everyone in the class freeze nervously. I took the fact that I'd yet to be swooned over today as a good thing, but it was odd. Not that I was complaining, but still. Odd. "You all seem a bit nervous. Something wrong?"

"Nothinggggg!" they all replied.

I shrugged. Wasn't all that weird, now that I thought about it.

I walked over to my desk just as Chifuyu and Maya arrived. The Teacher From Hell immediately yelled for everyone to get seated as Maya got up behind the lectern. Silence ruled for a moment or two, before she said, "Okay class, before we begin, I'd like to introduce to you yet another new transfer student!"

Again?!

As the door slid open, I started silently praying that it wasn't someone I knew.

What happened next shocked me to my core, and my eyes went wide.

Because the one who walked in was a boy.

My mind spun in a hundred different directions as I observed him. The first thing I noticed was that he was very petite. Maybe a bit taller than Rin. He had green eyes that were set into a face I would've said was really pretty on a girl, and his braided blonde hair reached to the middle of his back.

"I am Charles Dunois, and I have come from France," he said happily. I could've told he was from France even if he hadn't told us; the heavy accent was a dead giveaway, "It is nice to meet you."

"Dude, you're a dude...," I said, trying to string together any form of coherent thought.

"Oui," he replied, "I heard about a male student who was in the same situation as I am, so I transferred here."

I then noticed that no one had started squealing until that moment. After all, for them, prospects were quite slim with just me. But now, there's a new guy. And a French one, on top of that.

"There's a second male student!"

"And he's in our class!"

"He's soooo cuuuuute!"

Charles smiled good-naturedly and bore with it.

"Silence, dammit!" Chifuyu yelled, "That's quite enough!"

The entire room went silent. Even Charles looked a bit scared.

"Today we're conducting joint practical training with Class 1-2," Chifuyu said, "I want everyone changed and assembled in arena two ASAP."

I was about to get up, but Chifuyu finished, "And Murdoch?"

"Yeah?"

"Since you're both males, I want you to keep an eye on Dunois, okay? Okay, let's get moving, girls!"

"So you're Sten Murdoch," Charles said, walking up to my desk, "Nice to meet you! I am-"

"I heard your introduction, Charles. No time for rehashing. We've gotta get going," I grabbed his hand and started out the door, "The girls'll be done changing faster than we will, so we need to move fast."

As we speed walked down the hallway to the stairwell, I explained the situation. "This school's outfitted for girls and girls only, so we have to get changed in the locker room at arena three. The girls don't exactly like it when we change with or anywhere near them."

"Oh, right..."

I looked back at him. His face was a tinted red and he was pursing his lips a bit. "You look a bit anxious, Charles. You need to piss or something?"

"No, that's not it."

He was _so_ French.

Just as we were coming up on the doorway to the stairwell, a pair of second years shot out from around the corner. "Hey! I see the transfer student!"

"He's standing with Murdoch!"

"Mondieux," Charles muttered.

"Ah, shit," I'm sure you can guess which one of us said that.

At which point the whole freaking horde joined the first two.

"Lookit! They're holding hands!"

"I like Murdoch's brown hair, but I like the blonde too..."

"To hell with it! Run for it, Charles!" I barked.

I sprinted around the opposite corner, Charles hot on my heels and the horde on his. We'd have to take the southern stairwell, which would put an extra minute and fifty seconds on the trip, if not more.

"They're getting awaaaaaay!"

"Hey, at least stop and let me take a picture for the school paper!"

We neither stopped nor let her take a picture for the paper. We turned another corner and I jump-kicked the stairwell door open.

"What are they making such a racket for?" Charles asked.

I fixed him with a look of pity. "We're guys, they're girls, why the hell do you _think_ they're chasing us?!"

"Oh yes! That must be it!"

"Just keep running, okay? We don't have much time."

Two minutes later, we arrived. I directed Charles to his assigned locker then hurried over to mine.

"Looks like we managed to shake the horde," I said.

"I'm sorry," Charles said breathlessly, "I've already gotten you into trouble."

"Man, don't even worry. You're sorta saving my life. It's... tough. Being the only guy in the school, I mean."

"No, really?"

I smiled and punched my locker. The door opened. "Yeah, really. Anyway, I'm Sten Murdoch," I held out a hand to shake.

He took my hand and shook vigorously. "Hello, Sten! You may call me Charles, if you like."

By chance, I then glanced at the clock. 9:43. A flame of panic erupted in me. Actually, more like a supernova.

"Shit! Time, time, time!" I cried, pulling my IS suit from my locker. I threw off my jacket and shirt and was in the middle of dropping my pants when Charles meeped and whipped around, hands over his eyes and face red as a tomato.

"Charles?" I asked, "Something wrong? You'll be late if you don't change pronto, and our teacher happens to be quite insistent on punctuality...," I growled, clenching a fist in mock anger.

"Mmm- I'm going to get changed now, but would you mind looking the other way, s'il vous plais?"

"I wasn't really going to stare at you anyway, bro," I said, turning back to my locker.

Charles went to his and I resumed pulling my clothes off. As I stood in my underwear I briefly turned back to him and said, "Just hurry the hell up, okay- holy shit, how'd you get that on so fast?!"

"Is something wrong?" a flustered Charles said, pulling on the hem of his fully-donned IS suit. His was a different design from mine, being two pieces instead of one. The first was a pair of knee-length Notex tights, and the second was a skin-tight Notex shirt that only went to the end of his ribcage, leaving his whole midriff exposed. His was a gunmetal gray with orange lines at the waist and the shirt's hem.

"No, it's just that you changed incredibly fast," I said, "Do you have a trick to it?"

"Oh, not really," Charles said awkwardly, absent-mindedly poofing his hair, "I don't..."

"Well, there's a cryin' shame. These outfits are a pain in the ass to put on. Since ya can't wear any underwear under them, my things are always getting caught."

"Your _things_ get caught?" asked a blushing Charles.

"_And_ how," his face lit up like a Christmas tree and I laughed.

"But whether or not I can get my nuts into my suit aside, your suit looks pretty easy to put on."

Charles nodded and smiled as the red faded from his cheeks. "Yes; it's an original made by Dunois."

"Ain't that your last name?"

He nodded. "That's because my papa is the CEO," he said, "As you know, Dunois is the largest IS related corporation in all of France."

"Ah, so your dad owns the company?" I smiled and shoved my upper uniform into my locker, "Now I get it."

"Mhh? What do you mean?"

"You're a classy guy, Charles," I said, "So I figured you must be from some prestigious family somewhere."

He didn't really show it, but I was quick enough to catch the ghost of a frown that dashed across his face. I was about to ask about it when I glanced at the clock. "Holy shit! Run!"

And so, only half into my wetsuit-like IS interface suit, I dashed through the hallways, Charles' hand in one hand and my other desperately holding on to the hope that I would survive Chifuyu's wrath if Charles was late for his first freaking class.

That, and keeping my suit from falling and flashing the world.

* * *

Before I start: yes, we were late.

But, to be fair, Takatsuki tripped me. It hurt.

As we always did for practicals, our class stood in ranks. Obviously there were twice as many of us as usual, which brought our number to an even sixty.

Charles stood just behind me, his back ramrod straight and his chest puffed out. He looked like he was trying to be as professional as possible.

"Relax, man," I whispered back to him.

His eyes glanced around in confusion at the girls standing around him. Most, if not all of them had their shoulders dropped and a few were even slouching. He let out the breath he'd been holding and relaxed.

Houki glanced over from beside me. "How is he?"

"Pretty cool," I replied, smiling, "Seems like a real stand-up guy."

"Good to know we have at least one of those around here."

"That's cold."

"Hmph!" she turned back toward the front of the group, where Chifuyu was standing, garbed in her mysterious track suit.

"Your practical training for today begins now," she said, glaring at us. I don't know why she was glaring; obviously one of us had pissed her off, "For today's purposes, we'll need to demonstrate a real battle. Huang! Alcott!"

"Ma'am!"

"Ma'am!"

"Since you both have your own machines, I'm sure you'll gladly volunteer."

Rin huffed in annoyance and walked off to the side, "What a nuisance... Why is it always me?"

Cecilia followed a step behind. "Ugh... oh my, such a vulgar spectacle. Do I really have to do this?"

Once they were out of my earshot, Chifuyu smirked as she walked by them and muttered just loud enough for them to hear, "Show a little enthusiasm! This is the _perfect_ chance to show off for the boys..."

Rin and Cecilia both stiffened visibly, before settling themselves into stances that screamed 'swagger'. The latter of the two flicked her single earring.

"It looks like it's time for I, Cecilia Alcott, to step up and show you all how it's done!"

"Yeah, and I can show you all the difference between a simple cadet and a Representative Contender!" Rin said, equally as enthusiastically. Honestly, her comment was more offensive than inspiring.

The rest of us just sort of stared at them awkwardly.

Charles leaned over my shoulder. "What did the teacher just say to those girls?"

"Hell if I know. Probably something to do with a shoe sale, or what-have-you."

Cecilia put her hands on her hips and leaned to the side. "So, who's my opponent?" she looked over at Rin, "I wouldn't mind tossing _you_ away, Restaurant Girl."

Rin smirked confidently. "Haha. Watch it, bitch. You're dead meat."

"Oh," Chifuyu said, "Don't get ahead of yourselves. You haven't met your opponent!"

I finally registered a whistle from above. I almost ducked for cover, thinking it was a bomb; but seriously, who would bomb us? ISA was a freaking school!

Five seconds later I regretted not running. For, falling from the sky clad in one of the green IS units that I'd seen in the third year class/hangar/thing, was Maya Yamada.

And, in typical Maya Yamada fashion, she was tumbling out of the sky, completely and utterly out of control. "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" she shrieked.

As everyone else scattered, I turned to run but tripped over a rock.

F*ck my life.

Maya meteored straight into the ground, somehow managing to land right on top of me. The impact alone should have killed me, but I managed to deploy Paxis' chestplate (the part that deals with shield emission) just before touchdown.

Everything was dark, and for a second I thought I'd gone blind. But the pillow between me and her should've protected my face, right?

Wait... pillow?

I brought my hands up to my face and grasped the pillow, trying to push it away. I stopped when I heard a soft moan.

I opened my eyes.

I had a very big boob in either hand, and Maya was blushing to her roots.

But she was smiling, too. Is that okay? Like, student groping teacher - teacher enjoys?

No?

Crap. Does this mean I'm a molester?

"Yes," she said softly, making absolutely no move to get off me, "There does appear to be a little bit of a problem here."

Was that giddiness? Excitement? A particularly paltry attempt at a sultry tone of voice? One of those three things holds true, and it isn't the first two.

I noticed I was still cupping her breasts.

"You see, if this progresses, we'll be breaking a number of school rules about student-teacher relationships, and while I must admit that I'm willing-"

I still feel bad about doing it, but I rather unceremoniously dumped her to my right and scrambled to my feet. A blue bolt of energy whizzed by my ass and I flinched, looking over to see Cecilia aiming Starlight Mk III at me.

She laughed good naturedly and smiled, but I could see boiling rage in the vein that popped in her forehead. I thought only _Houki_ did that. "So sorry, I seem to have misfired!"

"Yeah! You _missed firing_ at my ass! _By an inch_!" I snapped.

I heard the all-too-familiar sound of Souten Gagetsu snapping together and turned toward it just in time to see Rin hurl the weapon at me. "Steeeeeen!" she screamed angrily.

_*Bang! Bang!*_

The tip of the double bladed sword sank into the ground and the smoking barrel of a sniper rifle stuck out from between my legs. No, that's not a joke.

I leaned down and looked under me to see Maya was on her belly, rifle in hands, staring down the scope. She looked up and smiled. "Hey, Sten! You didn't get hurt there, did you?"

I chuckled, totally frazzled. "Just my pride, Maya. Just my pride."

And indeed, my pride never recovered. What little I had left at that point, that is.

Chifuyu smirked devilishly as she walked over and chuckled. "By the way, Miss Yamada used to be a Representative Contender. Making a shot like that is _nothing_ for her."

"Thanks," Maya said, standing, "But that was a long time ago, and I could never get past being just a Contender!"

"Well, you're still _more_ than a match for these two. Together."

"What?" Cecilia asked, "You can't mean it's going to be two against one?"

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Rin pitched in.

Chifuyu raised an eyebrow and yanked my arm, pushing me back in ranks. "Oh, don't worry," she said, "I'm sure your embarrassment won't last very long."

The two of them frowned, obviously more than a little peeved. They turned to each other and nodded, before pulsing their bootjets and rising high into the air. Maya followed them, not far away.

"Just so you know," Cecilia said, "I'm not going to hold back!"

"We weren't actually being serious earlier, anyway!" Rin shouted.

Chifuyu looked up at the three of them.

"Are you seriously doing this?" I asked quietly.

"Just remember to take notes, Murdoch. They're in for quite a thrashing. Now, would you mind connecting me to them via IS channel?" she said.

I held the Paxis bracer out in front of her and turned on the external mic. "Go for it."

Chifuyu raised her hand. "Let the carnage begin!" she yelled.

Cecilia immediately deployed her BITs and started blasting. Maya jetted out of the way, weaving skilfully between the bolts and raising the shield on her arm when Rin fired Ryuhou.

"Mister Dunois!" Chifuyu snapped, "I'd like you to tell us about the IS that Miss Yamada's using."

Charles bolted to attention again as soon as he heard his name and nodded. "But of course," he said, "Miss Yamada's IS is a Rafale Revive, made by the Dunois Corporation. It was created at the end of the second generation development, however its specs are not inferior to the early third generation models. This is the latest mass-produced model IS that is currently in use. Right now, its market share ranks third worldwide. Furthermore, this model can be modified for combat, artillery and defense."

Maya was like a bullet, dodging every Ryuhou bolt, Starlight blast or swipe of Souten Gagetsu that came her way, all the while pounding away at their shields. It was incredible, the skill the petite woman possessed.

Maya laynched a spray of bullets at Rin, who in her haste to dodge, slammed straight into Cecilia. An RPG launcher materialized in Maya's hands and she fired a single shot. Cecilia and Rin fell out of the sky like a pair of tangled up teenage girls. Which they were, I suppose...

They finally made ground not far from us, sending up a cloud of dirt from the new crater.

Chifuyu and I walked over to the edge. I was amazed at how she didn't complain about the craters that were made on a daily basis by the girls. _I_ certainly got chewed out every time!

"Euuuh... I can't believe this is happening to me!" Cecilia moaned.

"Couldn't you tell she knew just exactly which was you were going to go to escape from her?!" Rin yelled.

"And what about you?! You were taking unnecessary shots like an idiot!"

We made it to the edge of the crater just as Maya landed behind us. "I hope you now understand what your instructor is capable of," Chifuyu said, "and knowing that, show her the proper respect. Murdoch, show me your notes."

"They're a little on the colloquial side, so be warned," I handed Chifuyu my datapad and pulled up the note I'd just taken. It simply read:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"A+, Murdoch."

"Yesssss!" I threw up a fist in victory.

We walked back over to the rest of the group, and Maya's Rafale Revive dissipated into a bracelet on her left wrist. She had a smile on her face that stretched from ear to ear.

"Well," I said to her quietly, "_Someone's_ beaming."

She blushed and her smile turned to an expression of embarrassment. "I'm not..."

It was actually painful, how adorable Maya was. I patted her shoulder and went back to my place in front of Charles. "For the first phase of your practical training, you'll form teams. Those who have Personal Units will be the team leaders. The five of you will be demonstrating and teaching basic combat maneuvers with melee or ranged weapons, depending on the provided IS. That's it, so get forming, already!" Chifuyu ordered. It was still beyond me how she managed to sound so irritated so often.

However, those thoughts fell by the wayside as approximately 2.7 gaggles of girls surrounded me, shouting out different yet ever-similar variations of the phrase 'pick me'.

I noticed that Houki was among them, although she'd just crossed her arms and was glaring at me. I waved her over, but she just stood still. And glared. Did I mention the glare?

Figuring that going any further to invite her closer would spell my doom, I shrugged and sniffed as the IS units we'd be using were wheeled out onto the arena floor. Charles' and Cecilia's groups had Rafale Revives, while Rin's and mine had the commonplace Uchigane. They each came with an attendance list for both classes.

"Okay," I said, walking over to the unit and detaching it from the cart, "Here's our IS. Just so I can get a look at this, how many of you have flown at least once since the entrance exam?"

About seven or eight of the seventeen girls raised their hands. "Okay," I said, "That's an amount we can work with."

I yanked down a lever and the harness that held the IS in transport mode fell away. I kicked it back to the cart as the boots and wings moved away from the torso unit and the skirt snapped into place.

"So, let's start with some basics just to get you guys warmed up. In order of your attendance numbers, I want you to put on the IS, activate it and walk forward a ways," I stood akimbo and smiled at them, "Got it?"

They gave their affirmatives.

"So, who's first..."

I looked down at the attendance list but scarcely caught a glimpse of it before a Japanese girl screamed," Me! Me! I'm Kiyoka Aikawa, and I'm on the handball team! My hobbies include watching sports and jogging!" she bowed and held out a hand to shake, "Nice to meet you!"

I quirked an eyebrow. "We have a handball team?"

Oh, sure, Sten. _That's_ what you take away from that.

Next thing I knew, the rest of them had there hands out too. I glanced over at Charles and saw he was in pretty much the same predicament I was.

I chuckled. "Welcome to the man meat grinder, Charles."

I tried to ignore them and, much to their irritation and Aikawa's joy, focus on her.

"I assume you know that normally there's a machine that helps you put an IS on, right?"

"Yes!"

"Well," I said, "We obviously don't have one here, so you'll need to assemble it manually. There should be a mental connection when you touch an unlinked IS."

She touched the Uchigane and her eyes visibly widened. "Wow..." she muttered, "This is so different from normal..."

"Yeah, it is. Anyway, imagine a latch unlocking and the unit should open."

The boots hissed as they split, and the torso unit slid sideways. On my urging, Aikawa mounted.

"Okay, now lean back into the torso and extend your fingers."

A minute later, Aikawa was standing clad in the Uchigane, looking like she was about to fall over.

"You stable?" I asked, my gauntlets deployed so I could catch her.

"Yeah," she replied, standing up straight.

So, I had her walk a couple dozen steps, then switch with the next girl, and the next and the next until we got to Houki.

"Okay, I assume you know how to mount by now?"

"Hmph!"

"Fantastic."

She stomped over to the Uchigane, slipped her feet into the boots and leaned back into the torso. All the sections snapped into place and the Hypersensor package fitted itself to her head.

"Okay, go."

Her walking was exemplary; maybe some of the best I've ever seen. And, after all four seconds of it, I applauded.

"Pure artistry, my dove. Simply magnificent."

"Shut up, Murdoch!" she snapped.

I waved her back over. "Don't take off the IS, but I want you to stand with the group."

When all of them were assembled I related the next part of what we were doing. "Okay, so now that we've got that out of the way, we'll move on to the basic combat drills. Houki, I want you to come at me without your katana and give me a good one-two, okay?"

She didn't even respond. I had to deploy my IS faster than lightning, because one second the irate Japanese girl was in line and the next her fist was slamming into my cheek. I hit the ground hard and put my metallic palm to my aching jaw.

"Okay," I groaned, "Consider me one-two-d."

I got back up and gestured for her to stop.

What, you were expecting a lengthy fight? No! I get beaten up enough as it is!

"Okay! So, ladies, as you can see, Houki was rather merciless. But that's not what I wanted to illustrate."

Houki gave me an exasperated glare and I smiled. I loved her to death, but her bad attitude was really starting to piss me off.

"Lucy, can you tell me where Houki went wrong in her strike?" I asked, pointing suddenly at the redhead.

She startled a little and her eyes jumped left and right as she looked for a solution. She was obviously a little bit lost. "Ummmm..." she muttered, "I-... I don't know..."

Houki kept giving me the stinkeye.

I patted Lucy's shoulder reasuringly and shrugged. "That's correct."

"Huh?" Lucy said.

"Huh?" Houki growled.

I paced back and forth and gestured for Houki to dismount. She stepped off the IS and I gestured Aikawa back to the mech. "There were no flaws in Houki's attack. It was precise, it was accurate and she didn't hesitate for even a second. That's exactly what you want in an attack. You could all take a few hints from Houki's technique."

Houki blushed faintly.

"Okay," I said, gesturing back over to Chifuyu, "I'm going to go back to Miss Orimura for a minute, so pay attention to Houki."

"WHAT?" Houki screamed as she was crowded and questions were screamed.

I chuckled and jogged over to Chifuyu. She was standing under the pit, clutching a datapad and typing something. Couldn't see what, but whatever. "Hey, teach."

"Murdoch," she greeted without looking up, "Don't you have morons to look after."

"Yeah, and we need a second Uchigane."

"Any particular reason?"

"I don't want to take a punch to the face every time one of them puts on the IS."

"Good enough."

She snapped her fingers and pointed at the pit's field door. It snapped open and another cart with another Uchigane floated over to my group. I waved my thanks to Chifuyu and walked back over to the group.

"Okay, kiddies. Take turns putting on an IS and beating the hell out of each other, okay?"

One of them mounted and the fights started. I walked over to Houki and stood beside her as we watched them. "So... you're mad at me."

"Yes."

"Any particular reason why?"

"Yes."

"I don't suppose you'll be willing to tell me what I did, would you?"

"Nope."

"Would you if I took you out to lunch when class lets out?"

She froze. I cringed a little bit as she turned toward me so slowly, I could actually hear her spine creaking. No hit, blow or strike of any kind. I looked over at her as saw two things.

One, that she seemed more than a little bit perplexed.

Two, _SHE WASN'T PISSED_.

She didn't really say anything, so I thought that maybe she wasn't so interested. But then, she spoke. Quietly, and a little timidly, but her voice was definitely what I heard. "But... Why?"

I smiled and put a hand on the back of her neck. "Because I was (apparently, I added silently) an ass last night, so I figure I ought to make it up to you."

"Oh, well... Okay then."

She smiled to herself.

I heard a crash and looked over just in time to see Aikawa dropkick Fox Girl in the face. Fox Girl's IS fell off. "Oh, _guys_! Focus!"

* * *

And so, we found ourselves back in class the next day. Houki had enjoyed lunch. I think. I mean, Charles had tagged along, but that was unavoidable. I kind of had to take him everywhere. We'd sat on the roof and we'd eaten. Obviously.

Charles was a pretty cool guy. He could cook. I could cook. We could cook. It was kind of great.

Houki and I patched things up.

Then Cecilia and Rin jumped me.

Charles moved into 1025, too. So I wasn't lonely anymore.

Anyway, enough of my boring summary.

Maya stood in front of the class, lecturing. "In an official League match, battles work slightly differently. Those of you who have talked to your Operators know that their job is to feed information to the pilot. For the purposes of fairness to all students, your Operators are supplied with the enemy IS unit's data. However, in League matches, the opposing team's data is encrypted, meaning the Operator has to focus on both managing the pilot and gradually decrypting the data."

I raised my hand.

"Wouldn't that get a little bit crazy? I mean, it would be absurd to expect someone to focus so much on two things at once."

"Good question, Sten," she said, "There's actually a trick to it. You can actually bring in premade decryption patterns to use. With a little back-and-forth between the things to focus on, it doesn't take long to adapt them to suit the situation. Then all there is to do is wait until the reach the next encryption layer."

She ordered us to page 327 just as the door opened and my god-awful mother walked in. She tromped over to Maya and whispered something, before handing her a datapad. The colour drained from Maya's face as she read it over. My mother turned away, smirked evilly as she glanced at me and stood by the door.

I tried very hard not to panic.

Maya breathed deeply in and out a few times, keeping her hands on the lectern to keep herself steady. "Okay...," she said, "I have two things to announce. Thing one, it seems that we have a new transfer student."

Aw, hell! Not another.

The door opened and in tromped possibly the shortest fifteen-year-old I'd ever seen. Could not have been much more than 4'10". Her uniform was girls standard, but for the military-looking slacks that flared around her thighs before tucking into her black kneeboots. But perhaps the most striking thing I could see about her was her lustrous silver hair. She would've been pretty if not for the stern looking scowl.

She stood by the lectern and turned toward us. A holographic slide appeared beside her with her name on it. "Everyone, this is Laura Bodewig. She's transferred in from Germany to join our class for the rest of the academic year," Maya said.

"Introduce yourself, Laura," my mother said.

"Ya vol, Instructor (**A/N, I have absolutely no idea what she's actually saying in the Eng Dub when she says this. If you know, PM me so I can fix this**)," she said, standing at attention. As she stomped her foot, her hair was jarred and fell away from her left eye to reveal a black and red eyepatch. If I hadn't thought she was weird before, I most certainly did at that point, "I am Laura Bodewig!"

Her accent was as thick as molasses and more German than lederhosen-wearing schnitzel. And the way she carried herself, I'd be damned if she wasn't military. I waited for her to continue her introduction, but she just stood there. Maya twitched.

"Is, uh... Is that all?"

"Yah, that's all," she said, before turning her one red eye on me. I waved slightly as she walked up to my desk.

"Hi," I said, "I'm Ste-"

_*SLAP!*_

Laura pulled back her hand and viciously slapped me across the face. I keeled over and almost fell out of my chair at the force of the blow. My cheek felt like fire.

"I do not approve of you _Schwein_," she scathed, "And I _refuse_ recognize that you are her son."

I groaned and stood up, more angry than I'd been in a very, _very_ long time.

* * *

Maya Yamada, while she only _looked_ like she was a bit uneasy, was panicking internally. This couldn't have turned out any worse. When the German military had asked to send a new Representative Contender to the Academy, she'd been worried.

After Sten had asked her to be his official Operator, she'd asked Miss Orimura about her time in Germany. The officers there had been receptive and willing to learn, and had been model cadets. Especially Laura Bodewig. The girl had become quite attached to her teachers.

The problem was that she had taken a particular liking to Elizabeth Murdoch.

The bespectacled woman watched as Sten rose and clenched his fists, his eyes swimming with an anger that Maya hadn't known him for.

"Charles," he called to the boy who sat beside him, "You know that rule about not hitting girls?"

The Frenchman's eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen. "Sten, no!" he cried, a second too late.

As Sten's heavy fist slammed into Laura's nose, Maya didn't even need to glance back down at the datapad to be horrified. The awful, awful words were imprinted on her retinas.

_As of 6:00 this morning, Sten Murdoch is accused of the brutal assault of Olivia Murdoch on Sunday, October 17th, at 11:15 in the morning. He is to be notified of this, and placed on academic probation. If any more such incidents occur, he will face academic suspension, and potentially expulsion and arrest._

Expulsion and arrest.

Laura hit the floor and shrieked in pain.

* * *

**A/N! Excited, eh?**

**Okay, that took a pathetically long time to finish. A thousand apologies.**

**So, yeah. Stuff...**

**I'll start working on Chapter 7 immediately, so hopefully it won't take quite as long.**

**It seems to be a common thing that writers have some sort of emotional problem, and I'm afraid I've fallen into that too. It's taking up a fair bit of my time, trying to deal with it, so any support you guys can offer is appreciated more than you know. I know my writing isn't the best, but I want to get there someday. So constructive criticism is good.**

**Anyway, I ask you to review and tell me what you liked and didn't this time around. Even just a 'good job!' is the thing that gives me the energy to face the day.**

**Have a good one, guys!**


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